Youth Transition: The Influence of the Local Labour Market on Expectations

High levels of unemployment among youth have lead to a heightened focus on the transition from school to post-school activity. Despite a vast literature on youth transition only a few researchers have considered the role of the local labour market. This paper begins by reviewing the relevant education and economics literature. In this New Zealand study we explore the expectations of teenagers near the end of their schooling in two very different locations: Kawerau, a small 'company town’ in the Bay of Plenty experiencing high levels of inactivity, benefit dependency and migration, and Porirua City within Wellington, a high income metropolitan centre, with a robust, diversified local labour market. After controlling for sex, age, ethnicity and academic achievement we compare the expectations which senior secondary school students hold in the two locations in terms of their future education, employment and income. In each case statistically significant differences in student aspirations are identified between the two locations. Contrary to expectations from the education literature on rural youth it is not those students in the small mill town of Kawerau who exhibit the lower expectations - paradoxically their aspirations are noticeably more positive than their metropolitan counterparts. 'Reality checks’ against friends and siblings help detect inflated expectations but do not moderate the different results. The paradox is largely resolved by the economics literature which draws on the theory' of returns to investment in further education to show how local unemployment levels raise the probability youth will choose further schooling over searching for employment. It is this additional schooling which is associated with higher expectations

Serious delinquent behavior, sensation-seeking and electrodermal arousal

Low tonic skin conductance level (SCL) has been related, inconsistently, to both delinquency and sensation-seeking. This study tests the hypothesis that there is an interaction such that high sensation seeking delinquents, in particular, have low SCLs. Participants consisted of 335 boys from the Pittsburgh Youth Study classified as serious delinquents or controls based upon 10 years of prospectively collected self-report delinquency data. Participants' skin conductance was evaluated at age 16 along with several personality and neuropsychological measures. Both delinquency and sensation seeking were characterized by low SCL. However, there was no evidence to suggest that the presence of both of these factors together lead to especially low skin conductance levels. This finding is not explained by differences between the groups on measures of negative emotionality, IQ, socioeconomic status, or impulsivity

The challenge of parenting girls in neighborhoods of different perceived quality

It is well-known that disadvantaged neighborhoods, as officially identified through census data, harbor higher numbers of delinquent individuals than advantaged neighborhoods. What is much less known is whether parents’ perception of the neighborhood problems predicts low parental engagement with their girls and, ultimately, how this is related to girls’ delinquency, including violence. This paper elucidates these issues by examining data from the Pittsburgh Girls Study, including parent-report of neighborhood problems and level of parental engagement and official records and girl-reported delinquency at ages 15, 16, and 17. Results showed higher stability over time for neighborhood problems and parental engagement than girls’ delinquency. Parents’ perception of their neighborhood affected the extent to which parents engaged in their girls’ lives, but low parental engagement did not predict girls being charged for offending at age 15, 16 or 17. These results were largely replicated for girls’ self-reported delinquency with the exception that low parental engagement at age 16 was predictive of the frequency of girls’ self-reported delinquency at age 17 as well. The results, because of their implications for screening and early interventions, are relevant to policy makers as well as practitioners

Childhood Predictors of Desistance and Level of Persistence in Offending in Early Onset Offenders

Childhood predictors of adolescent offending careers were studied in 310 boys from the longitudinal Pittsburgh Youth Study who started offending prior to age 12. Three main groups were distinguished: serious persisters (n = 95), moderately serious persisters (n = 117), desisters (n = 63), and an intermittent group (n = 35). Group membership was predicted using risk and promotive factors measured in childhood. Serious and moderately serious persisters could be distinguished well from desisters (29.2% and 32.3% explained variance). Distinction between the two persister groups proved somewhat more difficult (20.9% explained variance). More serious persisters than desisters showed disruptive behavior, while moderately serious persisters fell in between. Further, more moderately serious persisters were marked by social disadvantage. Family involvement, small family and positive peer relationships were promotive of desistance. Concluding, early onset offenders show considerable heterogeneity in their adolescent offending careers which seem to some extent to be predicted by different sets of risk and promotive factors

Youth Transition: The Influence of the Local Labour Market on Expectations

High levels of unemployment among youth have lead to a heightened focus on the transition from school to post-school activity. Despite a vast literature on youth transition only a few researchers have considered the role of the local labour market. This paper begins by reviewing the relevant education and economics literature. In this New Zealand study we explore the expectations of teenagers near the end of their schooling in two very different locations: Kawerau, a small 'company town’ in the Bay of Plenty experiencing high levels of inactivity, benefit dependency and migration, and Porirua City within Wellington, a high income metropolitan centre, with a robust, diversified local labour market. After controlling for sex, age, ethnicity and academic achievement we compare the expectations which senior secondary school students hold in the two locations in terms of their future education, employment and income. In each case statistically significant differences in student aspirations are identified between the two locations. Contrary to expectations from the education literature on rural youth it is not those students in the small mill town of Kawerau who exhibit the lower expectations - paradoxically their aspirations are noticeably more positive than their metropolitan counterparts. 'Reality checks’ against friends and siblings help detect inflated expectations but do not moderate the different results. The paradox is largely resolved by the economics literature which draws on the theory' of returns to investment in further education to show how local unemployment levels raise the probability youth will choose further schooling over searching for employment. It is this additional schooling which is associated with higher expectations

Electoral management and the organisational determinants of electoral integrity

Achieving the ideals of electoral democracy depends on well-run elections. Persistent problems of electoral integrity in transitional and established democracies have prompted a burgeoning literature seeking to explain the determinants of electoral integrity around the world. However, the study of the organisations responsible for managing the electoral process has been limited to isolated national case studies. This article opens up an interdisciplinary and international research agenda on the global study of the organisational determinants of electoral integrity. It defines the concept of electoral management and provides a framework to understand how electoral management body (EMB) institutional design, EMB performance and electoral integrity are related. Findings from new data derived from cross-national surveys of EMBs are described, providing new insights into how elections are managed worldwide

Alcohol affects neuronal substrates of response inhibition but not of perceptual processing of stimuli signalling a stop response

Alcohol impairs inhibitory control, including the ability to terminate an initiated action. While there is increasing knowledge about neural mechanisms involved in response inhibition, the level at which alcohol impairs such mechanisms remains poorly understood. Thirty-nine healthy social drinkers received either 0.4g/kg or 0.8g/kg of alcohol, or placebo, and performed two variants of a Visual Stop-signal task during acquisition of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. The two task variants differed only in their instructions: in the classic variant (VSST), participants inhibited their response to a “Go-stimulus” when it was followed by a “Stop-stimulus”. In the control variant (VSST_C), participants responded to the “Go-stimulus” even if it was followed by a “Stop-stimulus”. Comparison of successful Stop-trials (Sstop)>Go, and unsuccessful Stop-trials (Ustop)>Sstop between the three beverage groups enabled the identification of alcohol effects on functional neural circuits supporting inhibitory behaviour and error processing. Alcohol impaired inhibitory control as measured by the Stop-signal reaction time, but did not affect other aspects of VSST performance, nor performance on the VSST_C. The low alcohol dose evoked changes in neural activity within prefrontal, temporal, occipital and motor cortices. The high alcohol dose evoked changes in activity in areas affected by the low dose but importantly induced changes in activity within subcortical centres including the globus pallidus and thalamus. Alcohol did not affect neural correlates of perceptual processing of infrequent cues, as revealed by conjunction analyses of VSST and VSST_C tasks. Alcohol ingestion compromises the inhibitory control of action by modulating cortical regions supporting attentional, sensorimotor and action-planning processes. At higher doses the impact of alcohol also extends to affect subcortical nodes of fronto-basal ganglia- thalamo-cortical motor circuits. In contrast, alcohol appears to have little impact on the early visual processing of infrequent perceptual cues. These observations clarify clinically-important effects of alcohol on behaviour

Chaos, containment and change: responding to persistent offending by young people

This article reviews policy developments in Scotland concerning 'persistent young offenders' and then describes the design of a study intended to assist a local planning group in developing its response. The key findings of a review of casefiles of young people involved in persistent offending are reported. It emerges that youth crime and young people involved in offending are more complex and heterogeneous than is sometimes assumed. This, along with a review of some literature about desistance from offending, reaffirms the need for properly individualised interventions. Studies of 'desisters' suggest the centrality of effective and engaging working relationships in this process. However, these studies also re-assert the significance of the social contexts of workers’ efforts to bring 'change' out of 'chaos'. We conclude therefore that the 'new correctionalism' must be tempered with appreciation of the social exclusion of young people who offend

Mindfulness-based interventions for young offenders: a scoping review

Youth offending is a problem worldwide. Young people in the criminal justice system have frequently experienced adverse childhood circumstances, mental health problems, difficulties regulating emotions and poor quality of life. Mindfulness-based interventions can help people manage problems resulting from these experiences, but their usefulness for youth offending populations is not clear. This review evaluated existing evidence for mindfulness-based interventions among such populations. To be included, each study used an intervention with at least one of the three core components of mindfulness-based stress reduction (breath awareness, body awareness, mindful movement) that was delivered to young people in prison or community rehabilitation programs. No restrictions were placed on methods used. Thirteen studies were included: three randomized controlled trials, one controlled trial, three pre-post study designs, three mixed-methods approaches and three qualitative studies. Pooled numbers (n = 842) comprised 99% males aged between 14 and 23. Interventions varied so it was not possible to identify an optimal approach in terms of content, dose or intensity. Studies found some improvement in various measures of mental health, self-regulation, problematic behaviour, substance use, quality of life and criminal propensity. In those studies measuring mindfulness, changes did not reach statistical significance. Qualitative studies reported participants feeling less stressed, better able to concentrate, manage emotions and behaviour, improved social skills and that the interventions were acceptable. Generally low study quality limits the generalizability of these findings. Greater clarity on intervention components and robust mixed-methods evaluation would improve clarity of reporting and better guide future youth offending prevention programs

Moving in and out of poverty: The within-individual association between socioeconomic status and juvenile delinquency

A family's SES can be changeable over time. This study was the first to investigate if such within-individual changes in family SES are associated with parallel fluctuations in boys' delinquent behavior from childhood to adolescence. Participants were a community sample of boys and their caregivers (N = 503) who were assessed annually for ten consecutive years spanning ages 7-18. Fixed effects models revealed that changes in familial SES were related to changes in delinquency: Youths were more likely to offend during years in which their parents' SES was lower than during years in which their parents' SES was higher. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence that this association was accounted for by families moving to different neighborhoods or by changes in parenting. Since withinindividual models provide a stricter test of causality than between-individual models, these findings support claims that impacting familial SES may have a direct effect on youths' delinquency. Copyright