Sports Participation and Juvenile Delinquency: A Meta-Analytic Review

Participation in sports activities is very popular among adolescents, and is frequently encouraged among youth. Many psychosocial health benefits in youth are attributed to sports participation, but to what extent this positive influence holds for juvenile delinquency is still not clear on both the theoretical and empirical level. There is much controversy on whether sports participation should be perceived as a protective or a risk factor for the development of juvenile delinquency. A multilevel meta-analysis of 51 published and unpublished studies, with 48 independent samples containing 431 effect sizes and N = 132,366 adolescents, was conducted to examine the relationship between sports participation and juvenile delinquency and possible moderating factors of this association. The results showed that there is no overall significant association between sports participation and juvenile delinquency, indicating that adolescent athletes are neither more nor less delinquent than non-athletes. Some study, sample and sports characteristics significantly moderated the relationship between sports participation and juvenile delinquency. However, this moderating influence was modest. Implications for theory and practice concerning the use of sports to prevent juvenile delinquency are discussed. Keywords Sports participation Juvenile delinquency Multilevel meta-analysis Revie

Associations between stress and depression symptom profiles vary according to serotonin transporter polymorphism in rural Australians

Christopher F Sharpley,1 Vicki Bitsika,2 Mary E McMillan,1 Emmanuel Jesulola,1 Linda L Agnew1 1Brain-Behaviour Research Group, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia; 2Centre for Autism Spectrum Disorders, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia Purpose: Depression remains difficult to treat in all cases, and further investigation of the role of genetic and environmental factors may be valuable. This study was designed to investigate the association between the short (s) versus non-short (non-s) 5HTTLPR variants, presence of childhood stressors and recent life stressors, and depression, and to do so at two levels that would expose the associations between total depression scores and also individual depression items.Materials and methods: Two hundred and forty-nine volunteers from one of the Australian Electoral Office electorates covering a large rural land area completed a series of questionnaires about childhood and recent life stress and depression, and provided a buccal cell sample for genotyping the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism into s versus non-s carriers.Results: Although there were no significant differences in the depression scores of the s-carriers versus the non-s carriers, each subtype of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism showed different patterns of association between childhood stress and depression symptoms, and between recent life stress and depression symptoms.Conclusion: Individualization of therapy for depression may be achieved through consideration of the specific associations that patients exhibit between life stress, 5-HTTLPR polymorphism, and depression symptomatology. Keywords: genes, mental health, life experience

The impact of interviewer working hours on police interviews with children.

Fatigue resulting from unpredictable or extended working conditions is a factor that negatively impacts the performance of police officers. In this study, we considered how investigative interviewing of children is influenced by interviewer working conditions. We examined two working conditions concerning when interviews were conducted: a) during early duty shift, b) an hour before the end of an interviewer’s duty shift and after the end of a shift. We analysed 102 police interviews with children and identified clues that interviews which commenced during early duty shift had more appropriate approaches than interviews in the other condition. Inappropriate approaches were not significantly affected by interviewer working conditions. These outcomes suggest considering new knowledge specific to the behaviour of interviewers according to working conditions and provide promising foundations for further research