School Resource Officers and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: A Mixed Methods Application of the Behavior of Law in Schools

The implementation of school resource officer programs has been a popular response to school-based violence in the United States. Parents, school officials, and policy makers believe that police presence makes students and staff feel safer on campus, deters school-based crime and violence, and creates positive relationships between youth and the police. However, there is a growing concern that school resource officers hypercriminalize trivial student misbehavior, contribute to a culture of youth punishment and control, and are instrumental in facilitating a link between schools and the juvenile justice system. Despite the rapid rate at which school resource officer programs have expanded over the last two decades and the significant amount of federal and state funds that have been allocated for their implementation, very little is known about how school resource officers operate in schools across the United States. The current work aims to gain a better understanding of how school resource officers spend their time, the extent to which school characteristics explain the variation in their behaviors, the factors influencing their involvement in school discipline, and how their behavior is shaped by the presence and availability of schools’ informal social control measures. Since school resource officers are likely to remain a permanent fixture in schools across the country, it is necessary to better understand their role within the school setting. Utilizing data from the Department of Education’s School Survey on Crime and Safety (2015), supplemented with qualitative interviews from a sample (n=20) of school resource officers, the current research aims to fill this gap in the literature by applying Donald Black’s (1976) Behavior of Law as a theoretical framework. Some findings were consistent with the notion that school resource officers engage in behaviors that may contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, but other findings suggested that many school resource officers are willing to seek alternative social control measures in an effort to keep students out of the juvenile justice system. This highlights the importance of selecting officers for this assignment who are oriented toward working with youth and are committed to using alternatives to formal juvenile justice sanctions, while only referring students to the juvenile justice system as a last resort. Additionally, these findings suggest that although schools are considered to be a microcosm of society, the law oftentimes manifests itself differently within schools relative to the rest of society due to the intimate nature of the school setting. Further, it is important that police departments and school districts maintain a shared understanding of the roles of school resource officers and that schools should not be policed in the same way in which streets are policed. Finally, school resource officers should be expected to take advantage of the readily available alternative social control measures that are unique to the school setting so as not to perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline

Joan Brugge: Running rings around cancer

Brugge has devoted her career to uncovering how perturbations in normal cellular processes give rise to cancer

Overview of Australian Indigenous health status, 2014

The main purpose of the Overview is to provide a comprehensive summary of the most recent indicators of the health and current health status of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It has been prepared by the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet as a part of our contribution to ‘closing the gap’ in health between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians by making relevant, high quality knowledge and information easily accessible to policy makers, health service providers, other health professionals including Health workers, program managers, clinicians, researchers, students and the general community. The initial sections of this Overview provide information about the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, and various measures of population health status. Most of the subsequent sections about specific health conditions comprise an introduction about the condition and evidence of the current burden of the condition among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Information is provided for state and territories and for demographics such as gender and age when it is available and appropriate. While the Overview provides a comprehensive review of key indicators across a range of health topics, it is beyond the scope to provide detailed information on other aspects, such as the availability and use of services (including barriers to their use) and strategies and policies related to specific health topics. Interested readers should refer to the topic-specific reviews that are available on the HealthInfoNet’s website. Additional, more in depth, information about the topics summarised in this Overview is included in the corresponding sections of the HealthInfoNet’s website (www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au). There are a number of additions to this Overview. We have included a recognition statement, a note on the use of appropriate terminology that introduces our guidelines on the matter, and a statement of commitment to enhancing our strengths based approach to reporting

Patterns of Colorectal Cancer Care in the United States: 1990–2010

Colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality has declined in the United States, in part because of advances in treatment. Few studies have evaluated the adoption of therapies and temporal changes in patterns of care

A qualitative study of risk and resilience in young adult women with a history of juvenile-onset fibromyalgia

Background: Juvenile-onset Fibromyalgia (JFM) is a chronic pain condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep difficulties, mood concerns, and other associated symptoms. Although diagnosed in childhood, JFM often persists into adulthood can result in continued physical, social, and psychological impairment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify themes of risk and resilience for long-term outcomes among young adults diagnosed with JFM in childhood. Methods: The sample included 13 young adults (ages 26-34) who had been diagnosed with JFM in adolescence. Focus groups were used to elicit qualitative information about living with JFM and perceived challenges and buffering factors impacting their adjustment. Results: The majority of participants (80%, N = 12) continued to meet criteria for fibromyalgia (FM). An iterative, thematic analysis revealed themes of resilience (e.g., greater acceptance, re-setting expectations, active coping, addressing mental health) and risk (e.g., lack of information, stigma, isolation, negative healthcare experiences). Conclusion: Results suggest the need for longer follow-up of youth with JFM as they transition to adulthood with multidisciplinary care and more attention to education about JFM and associated symptoms such as fatigue, as well as ongoing support for coping and mental health needs. A holistic approach to care during the transition years could be beneficial to minimize impact of JFM on long-term functioning

Overview of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status, 2015

The main purpose of the Overview is to provide a comprehensive summary of the most recent indicators of the health and current health status of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people. It has been prepared by Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet staff as part of our contribution to supporting those who work in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector. The Overview is a key element of the HealthInfoNet commitment to authentic and engaged knowledge development and exchange. The initial sections of this Overview provide information about the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, population, and various measures of population health status. Most of the subsequent sections about specific health conditions comprise an introduction about the condition and evidence of the current burden of the condition among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Information is provided for state and territories and for demographics such as sex and age when it is available and appropriate

Heterochromatin Controls γH2A Localization in Neurospora crassa

In response to genotoxic stress, ATR and ATM kinases phosphorylate H2A in fungi and H2AX in animals on a C-terminal serine. The resulting modified histone, called γH2A, recruits chromatin-binding proteins that stabilize stalled replication forks or promote DNA double-strand-break repair. To identify genomic loci that might be prone to replication fork stalling or DNA breakage in Neurospora crassa, we performed chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of γH2A followed by next-generation sequencing (ChIP-seq). γH2A-containing nucleosomes are enriched in Neurospora heterochromatin domains. These domains are comprised of A·T-rich repetitive DNA sequences associated with histone H3 methylated at lysine-9 (H3K9me), the H3K9me-binding protein heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1), and DNA cytosine methylation. H3K9 methylation, catalyzed by DIM-5, is required for normal γH2A localization. In contrast, γH2A is not required for H3K9 methylation or DNA methylation. Normal γH2A localization also depends on HP1 and a histone deacetylase, HDA-1, but is independent of the DNA methyltransferase DIM-2. γH2A is globally induced in dim-5 mutants under normal growth conditions, suggesting that the DNA damage response is activated in these mutants in the absence of exogenous DNA damage. Together, these data suggest that heterochromatin formation is essential for normal DNA replication or repair

Overview of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health status 2016

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent indicators of the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Information focuses on: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health various measures of population health status selected health conditions health risk and protective factors. The Overview shows that the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues to improve slowly and there has been a decline in the death rates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and also a significant closing of the gap in death rates between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous people. The infant mortality rate has declined significantly. There have also been improvements in a number of areas contributing to health status such as the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers who smoked during pregnancy has decreased. There has been a slight decrease in the proportion of low birth weight babies born to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mothers between 2004 and 2014. Age-standardised death rates for respiratory disease in NSW, Qld, WA, SA and NT declined by 26% over the period 1998-2012 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Two new sections are featured in this edition of the Overview. With the 20th anniversary of the Bringing them home report, a section has been dedicated to Healing which highlights the contribution of healing workers and organisations to supporting people, families and communities impacted by the Stolen Generations. Environmental health with its important link to the social determinants of health is also included for the first time in the Overview 2016

Multi-Messenger Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays: Application to 3C66B Using the NANOGrav 11-year Data Set

When galaxies merge, the supermassive black holes in their centers may form binaries and, during the process of merger, emit low-frequency gravitational radiation in the process. In this paper we consider the galaxy 3C66B, which was used as the target of the first multi-messenger search for gravitational waves. Due to the observed periodicities present in the photometric and astrometric data of the source of the source, it has been theorized to contain a supermassive black hole binary. Its apparent 1.05-year orbital period would place the gravitational wave emission directly in the pulsar timing band. Since the first pulsar timing array study of 3C66B, revised models of the source have been published, and timing array sensitivities and techniques have improved dramatically. With these advances, we further constrain the chirp mass of the potential supermassive black hole binary in 3C66B to less than $(1.65\pm0.02) \times 10^9~{M_\odot}$ using data from the NANOGrav 11-year data set. This upper limit provides a factor of 1.6 improvement over previous limits, and a factor of 4.3 over the first search done. Nevertheless, the most recent orbital model for the source is still consistent with our limit from pulsar timing array data. In addition, we are able to quantify the improvement made by the inclusion of source properties gleaned from electromagnetic data to `blind' pulsar timing array searches. With these methods, it is apparent that it is not necessary to obtain exact a priori knowledge of the period of a binary to gain meaningful astrophysical inferences.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Ap