Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform

Since 1970, there has been a nearly five-fold increase in the number of people in U.S. jails—the approximately 3,000 county or municipality-run detention facilities that primarily hold people arrested but not yet convicted of a crime. Despite recent scrutiny from policymakers and the public, one aspect of this growth has received little attention: the shocking rise in the number of women in jail.Women in jail are the fastest growing correctional population in the country—increasing 14-fold between 1970 and 2014. Yet there is surprisingly little research on why so many more women wind up in jail today. This report examines what research does exist on women in jail in order to begin to reframe the conversation to include them. It offers a portrait of women in jail, explores how jail can deepen the societal disadvantages they face, and provides insight into what drives women's incarceration and ways to reverse the trend

The needs of gender-variant children and their parents

Approaches to gender diversity in Western culture have had a chequered past. Gender-variant children have been institutionalised, subjected to aversion therapies and pressured into maintaining secrecy and conforming to society’s gendered expectations while also dealing with bullying and harassment at school. Gender-variant adults struggle with a lack of acceptance and live in fear of violence and discrimination while at the same time dealing with the legacy of their childhood. Parents of gender-variant children are forced to contend with societal bias and assumptions that allow their children to be marginalised. Moreover, they have scarce resources to help them manage their child’s welfare and deal with their concerns on a day-to-day basis. The idea of gender variance confronts widely held assumptions that children born as male will act like ‘boys’ and children born as female will act like ‘girls’. This imposed binary perpetuates negativity towards people who express themselves with gendered variations in attire, behaviour or preferences. Despite the existence of cross-gender presentations and behaviour in every culture and throughout time, society still appears to be unaware that diversity in gender expression and sexual formation is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Previous research on gender-variant children has largely been focussed on the etiology and treatments of gender identity disorder, investigating demographics, heritability, co-morbid conditions, gender development, and genetic and environmental influences. However, current research within the social sciences draws attention to a range of gender variance topics such as: the challenges and inequalities affecting children presenting with gender diversity; their victimisation; their social transitions; and professionals’ use of language in referring to gender variance. Research studies on the parents of gender-variant children have generally utilised parent-reports on gender identity questionnaires relating to their child. Recent studies have explored parents’ stories and mental health ratings of their child as well as their emotions and attitudes towards their child. Combined child and parent reports have focussed on therapeutic support procedures and outcomes for parents and families with gender-variant children. These studies contribute important information that aids in the diagnosis of gender identity disorder and work continues towards suitable approaches for the support of these children and their parents. However, much of the evidence provided thus far is anecdotal and interventions are based on little or no evidence. Anecdotal reports, although important contributions to understanding individual circumstances, tend to privilege certain viewpoints. By establishing the needs of gender-variant children and their parents, this qualitative enquiry aims to contribute to research-based evidence and the development of supportive programs, training and policies. This study brings into the open forum some of the challenges that children with gender variance and their parents face, identifies ways in which the children and their parents are marginalised and explores how they cope. Evidence is provided so as to inform the practices, interventions and recommendations relied upon in supporting gender-variant children and their families. This research was conducted through three Internet surveys which used open-ended questions to provide a rich source of thick description of personal experiences. These questions enabled a thematic and reflective analysis of data sourced from the experiences of parents raising a gender-variant child, the childhood experiences (retrospective) of transgender adults, and the views of professionals who work with the transgender community. The results of this study indicate a severe lack of resources and access to professional help for gender-variant children and their parents. The needs of the children emerged as: the need to be heard and accepted by their parents without punishment; the need for information and peer contact; the need for personal gender expression; and the need for safety. The most common needs for parents were for information in the way of stories, research and guidelines as well as educational resources to prepare schools, professionals and local communities for providing trans-positive support for them and their child. Other identified needs of the parents addressed support from community, professionals, peers and governments. The goals of this project include the promotion of trans-positive approaches, and awareness and education regarding bullying and ostracism of gender-variant children. Outcomes are suggested in the form of recommendations and training policies for professionals, governments, schools and parents. These suggestions aim to reduce the debilitating experiences and outcomes that gender-variant adolescents and adults have to endure. This study of the needs of gender-variant children and their parents relies upon the voices of those in the community and fills a void in the current understanding and treatment of gender non-conforming children. The identification of these needs provides fundamental information for the development and application of resources and services that will foster positive mental health for gender-variant children during their formative years

THE RECIPROCAL PREDICTIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERSONALITY AND RISKY BEHAVIORS: AN 8-WAVE LONGITUDINAL STUDY IN EARLY ADOLESCENTS

While the overall stability of personality across the lifespan has been well-documented, there is also evidence of meaningful personality change. This is particularly true when individuals are going through periods of developmental transition. Over time, one sees incremental changes not just in behavior but in basic personality as well. 1,906 early adolescents were assessed for urgency scores, levels of maladaptive behavior engagement (drinking, smoking, and binge eating), and pubertal status every six months for four years. Zero-Inflated Poisson structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the model of reciprocal influence between behavior and personality. Across most six-month intervals over the course of the four-year study, urgency predicted increased engagement in the maladaptive behaviors. Strikingly, the reverse was true as well: engagement in behaviors predicted subsequent increases in urgency, which is otherwise a stable personality trait. This study is the first to find reciprocal prediction between engagement in maladaptive, risky behaviors and endorsement of the maladaptive personality trait of urgency during the early adolescent years. One implication of these findings is the apparent presence of a positive feedback loop of risk, in which maladaptive behaviors increase high-risk personality traits, which in turn further increase the likelihood of maladaptive behaviors

Alien Registration- Colbert, Elizabeth (Calais, Washington County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/1808/thumbnail.jp

Lumbar-pelvic coordination during repetitive lifting of novice and experienced lifters

Occurrences of low back disorders are high among individuals working in occupational settings that involve manual material handling tasks, particularly repetitive lifting. This study attempts to better understand the relationship between lumbar-pelvic coordination in repetitive lifting and lower back injury risk by examining differences between inexperienced and experienced lifters. It was hypothesized that experienced lifters would choose a more neutral coordination. Subjects performed repetitive lifting while kinematic and electromyographic (EMG) data was collected. The kinematic data showed that novice subjects approached the limits of their range of motion, during extension while experienced lifters maintained a more neutral lumbar spine during the entire lifting cycle. A second hypothesis was that a more kyphotic lumbar-pelvic coordination pattern preferred by inexperienced lifters would be more energetically efficient due to stretch-shortening dynamics. A computational spine model was also used to determine subjects' erector spinae muscle length during the experiment. EMG data was plotted against muscle length to form average work loops. These work loops were assessed for both the subjects preferred lifting strategy and two strategies trained with biofeedback (kyphotic and neutral). Work loops for the trained neutral lifting strategies encompassed less area, suggesting this style of lifting was more energetically efficient than a more trained kyphotic strategy. Therefore, the second hypothesis was not supported as kyphotic work loops encompassed more area than the other strategies

Effects of cocaine on visual processing in zebrafish

Psychostimulants are known to alter visual function acutely and on withdrawal, and can cause attention deficit following prenatal exposure. However, psychostimulants can also improve visual attention in patients with attention deficit. The mechanisms involved in these contrasting effects remain largely unknown. To determine the role of specific brain regions and the dopamine system in the impact of cocaine exposure on visual processing, we employed two-photon microscopy and a transgenic larval zebrafish expressing the calcium indicator GCaMP-HS. We documented neuronal responses to contrasting visual stimuli, red light (LF) and dark (DF) flashes. We found that in the optic tectum neuropil (TOn), both stimuli elicited similar responses, though after repeated stimulus presentation, habituation developed to dark flash only. The dorsal telencephalon (dTe) responded and habituated to LF only. Acute cocaine (0.5 μM) reduced neuronal responses to LF in both brain regions and prevented habituation of dTe neurons to LF, but did not modify responses or habituation to dark flash. Prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) did not modify baseline responses, but it prevented the acute effects of cocaine on LF responses in both regions and habituation in dTe, with no impact on dark flash responses. PCE also significantly reduced D1 dopamine receptor expression in TOn and cerebellum, but not dTe or the eye. Fish lacking the dopamine transporter (DATKO) retained normal D1 expression throughout the brain, baseline responses to LF in both TOn and dTe, and response reduction following cocaine in TOn. However, they demonstrated abnormal swimming behavior, and neither their swimming behavior nor dTe responses to LF were modified by cocaine. We discovered that in zebrafish, a diurnal vertebrate, responses to light not only require the primary visual processing center TO (superior colliculus in mammals), but also higher level processing by dTe. Responses to light but not darkness are modified by cocaine, unless the fish lack DAT or were exposed to PCE. Together, our results demonstrate specific effects of cocaine on visual processing mediated by the dopamine system, and provide a novel animal model for further investigation of these phenomena and development of new therapeutic approaches

The family Gothic: Identity and kinship in the American Gothic tradition

American Gothic literature contains many stories of families under duress, or individuals struggling to reconcile their family identity with their national identity. These stories often coincide directly with the anxieties of the American nation. Through the works of three authors, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft, I will study how the families of their works represent the concerns of the entire nation, and how Gothic terms catapult these stories into the American canon

Intentional Personality Change: Toward the Prevention of Problem Drinking

Personality stability across the lifespan has been well documented, but within that overall stability there is also evidence of meaningful change. There is both theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest that personality change can occur at the volition of the individual, through behavioral processes. The current study tested whether an emotion modulation intervention that promoted behavior change could be applied to reduce a related, high-risk personality trait (negative urgency) and a high-risk behavior (heavy alcohol consumption) using a three-week long, mixed laboratory design. Participants (n=23) were a sample of heavy drinking but otherwise healthy volunteers who were randomly assigned to receive either an experimental (emotion modulation) or control intervention. Participants completed three study visits: the first visit included a screening, self-report questionnaires and an ad libitum drinking task following a negative affect induction, the second visit included self-report questionnaires and an hour-long intervention following a negative affect induction, and the third visit again included self-report questionnaires and an ad libitum drinking task following a negative affect induction. We hypothesized that participants receiving the emotion modulation intervention would report reductions in negative urgency as well as reductions in drinking behavior following a negative affect induction in the laboratory. Neither of these hypotheses was supported. Implications for these null findings are discussed