Bruce G. Taylor

Shifting Boundaries: an experimental evaluation of a dating violence prevention program in middle schools.

We randomly assigned the Shifting Boundaries interventions to 30 public middle schools in New York City, enrolling 117 sixth and seventh grade classes (over 2,500 students) to receive a classroom, a building, a combined, or neither intervention. The classroom intervention included a six-session curriculum emphasizing the laws and consequences for perpetrators of dating violence and sexual harassment (DV/H), the social construction of gender roles, and healthy relationships. The building-based intervention included the use of building-based restraining orders, higher levels of faculty/security presence in safe/unsafe “hot spots” mapped by students, and posters to increase DV/H awareness and reporting. Student surveys were implemented at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 6-months post-intervention. As hypothesized, behaviors improved as a result of the interventions. The building-only and the combined interventions were effective in reducing sexual violence victimization involving either peers or dating partners at 6-months post-intervention. This was mirrored by reductions in sexual violence perpetration by peers in the building-only intervention. While the preponderance of results indicates that the interventions were effective, an anomalous result (increase in sexual harassment victimization reports that was contradicted by lower frequency estimates) did emerge. However, after analysis these anomalous results were deemed to be most likely spurious. The success of the building-only intervention alone is important because it can be implemented with very few extra costs to schools.

Changes in Spirituality and Well-Being Among Victims of Sexual Assault

Seventy, predominately inner-city, minority women who had been sexually assaulted in the previous 9 to 24 months filled out a questionnaire that included measures of change in well-being and change in the role of spirituality in their lives since the assault. Sixty percent of the victims indicated an increased role for spirituality. Changes in spirituality correlated .54 with changes in well-being. The victims with increased spirituality appeared to have restored well-being, whereas those without increased spirituality continued to have significantly depressed well-being. Although this study cannot provide convincing evidence for the causal mechanisms for these results, a model of compensating reciprocal causation between spirituality and well-being following traumatic events merits further study because it explains both the relatively high correlation in this study and the low correlations in cross-sectional studies of well-being and spirituality. With this model, a traumatic event causes reduced well- being, which causes increased spirituality, which then helps restore well-being to pre-event levels.

The Effects of Gender Violence/Harassment Prevention Programming in Middle Schools: A Randomized Experimental Evaluation

In this experiment, 123 sixth and seventh grade classrooms from Cleveland area schools were randomly assigned to one of two five-session curricula addressing gender violence/sexual harassment (GV/SH) or to a no-treatment control. Three-student surveys were administered. Students in the law and justice curricula, compared to the control group, had significantly improved outcomes in awareness of their abusive behaviors, attitudes toward GV/SH and personal space, and knowledge. Students in the interaction curricula experienced lower rates of victimization, increased awareness of abusive behaviors, and improved attitudes toward personal space. Neither curricula affected perpetration or victimization of sexual harassment. While the intervention appeared to reduce peer violence victimization and perpetration, a conflicting finding emerged—the intervention may have increased dating violence perpetration (or at least the reporting of it) but not dating violence victimization.

A National Descriptive Portrait of Adolescent Relationship Abuse Results From the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence

This article reports results from the National Survey on Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV) for 12- to 18-year-old youth (n = 1,804). STRiV provides the first nationally representative household survey focused on adolescent relationship abuse (ARA), covering perpetration and victimization. Among respondents (37%) reporting current- or past-year dating, 69% reported lifetime ARA victimization (63% lifetime ARA perpetration). Although psychological abuse was most common for these youth (more than 60%), the rates of sexual abuse (18%) and physical abuse victimization (18%), as well as 12% reporting perpetrating physical abuse and/or sexual abuse (12%) were substantial as well. Other than differences by age and gender, ARA rates were consistent by race/ethnicity, geographic region, urbanicity, and household characteristics, highlighting the importance of universal prevention programs. Compared with youth aged 15 to 18, those 12 to 14 years old reported lower rates of psychological and sexual ARA victimization. Similarly, we found lower ARA perpetration rates for those 12 to 14. We found no gender differences for ARA victimization but found that girls perpetrated more physical ARA than boys. Girls aged 15 to 18 reported perpetrating moderate threats/physical violence at more than twice the rate of younger girls and 3 times the rate compared with boys aged 15 to 18; girls aged 15 to 18 reported perpetrating more than 4 times the rate of serious psychological abuse than boys 15 to 18. Finally, these data document the significant positive correlation between ARA victimization and perpetration. Findings suggest that when working with youth in prevention services, interventions should not be designed for monolithic groups of “victims” or “perpetrators.”

Injuries to Officers and Suspects in Police Use-of-Force Cases: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation

The Conducted Energy Device (CED) weapon holds the potential to reduce injuries for officers/suspects. However, the dearth of research on CEDs makes it difficult to make informed decisions about its deployment. We conducted a quasi experiment to compare 4 years of data from seven law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with CED deployment with six matched LEAs without CED deployment. Compared with non-CED sites, CED sites had lower rates of officer injuries, suspect severe injuries, and officers and suspects receiving injuries requiring medical attention. Our results suggest that CEDs can be effective in helping minimize physical struggles and resulting injuries in use-of-force cases.

Prevalence of teen dating violence and co-occurring risk factors among middle school youth in high-risk urban communities

PURPOSE This study describes the lifetime prevalence of teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration in a sample of middle school students from high-risk urban communities and examines the relation between TDV and related cognitive and behavioral risk factors. METHODS Surveys were administered to 2,895 middle school students in four U.S. cities; 1,673 students (58%) reported having dated and were included in analyses. The sample was 52.3% female, 48.2% non-Hispanic black/African-American, 38.2% Hispanic, 4.8% non-Hispanic white, and 7.6% other race. Six types of TDV perpetration were assessed: threatening behaviors, verbal/emotional abuse, relational abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and stalking. RESULTS Of the students who had dated, 77% reported perpetrating verbal/emotional abuse, 32% reported perpetrating physical abuse, 20% reported threatening a partner, 15% reported perpetrating sexual abuse, 13% reported perpetrating relational abuse, and 6% reported stalking. Girls were more likely than boys to report perpetrating threatening behaviors, verbal/emotional abuse, and physical abuse, and boys were more likely to report perpetrating sexual abuse. Involvement in bullying positively predicted perpetration of TDV, albeit, in different ways for boys and girls. Other risk factors differed by sex. For instance, alcohol use and sex initiation predicted multiple forms of TDV perpetration for boys, whereas weapon carrying and emotional symptoms predicted several forms of TDV perpetration for girls. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of TDV was high in our sample. Important sex differences in rates of perpetration and risk factors emerged. Comprehensive prevention programs that target TDV and related risk factors, such as bullying and other risk factors, seem warranted.

Impact of sexual and nonsexual assault on secondary victims

Much information has been collected on the effects of crime upon victims. Experts have spoken as well about the ripple effects of crime on those close to victims. To date, however, little empirical data are available to assess the impact of crime upon “secondary victims.” Our research looks at the effects of crime on a sample of persons named by victims of sexual and nonsexual assault as their primary significant others (SOs). We found that distress experienced by SOs did not vary according to victim distress or according to whether the crime was a sexual or nonsexual assault. Female SOs, however, experienced greater fear of crime than male SOs. High levels of SO distress did not interfere with the ability of SOs to lend supportive actions, but were associated with higher levels of SO unsupportive behavior. Higher levels of unsupportive behavior were also more likely among SOs of sexual assault victims than among SOs of nonsexual assault victims. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Adjusting to criminal victimization: The correlates of postcrime distress.

This article explores the correlates of immediate and short-term psychological distress among victims of burglary, robbery, and nonsexual assault. A panel design was employed. Crime victims were interviewed within 1 month following the incident and again 3 months later. Four sets of predictors were examined: demographics, previctimization adjustment and stress, features of the crime incident, and victims’ perceptions. Measures of distress included a range of standard indices of adjustment and symptomatology. Demographic characteristics and victim perceptions accounted for the greatest proportions of variance in the outcome measures at Time 1 and Tune 2. The strongest predictors of psychological adjustment at the end of 3 months included adjustment after 1 month, education, victim injury, victims’ beliefs that their lives had been endangered during the crime episode, and victims’ appraisals of the world as meaningful. Implications for treatment and directions for future studies are discussed.

Combating Vehicle Theft in Arizona: A Randomized Experiment With License Plate Recognition Technology

This article focuses on a relatively new innovation for use by law enforcement, license plate recognition (LPR) systems, in fighting auto theft. While it is a promising technology, there has not been much research on the effectiveness of LPR systems. The authors conducted a randomized experiment to study the effects of LPR devices on auto theft. The authors found that the LPR is achieving its most basic purpose of increasing the number of plates scanned by officers (8 times greater) compared to manual plate checking. Further, when compared to manual checking, the LPR was associated with more “hits” (i.e., positive scans) for auto theft and stolen plates, more arrests for stolen vehicles, and more stolen vehicle recoveries. Unexpectedly, the authors found that manual plate checking by a special auto theft unit (but not LPR scanning by the same unit) was associated with less auto theft 2 weeks after the intervention (based on both police crime reports and calls for police service) than the control group (regular nonspecialized patrol without LPR). Finally, the authors found no evidence of crime displacement occurring from their targeted routes to adjacent areas for any of their models. This study provides evidence that LPR use can achieve demonstrable benefits in combating auto theft (i.e., more plates scanned, “hits,” arrests and recoveries with LPR). These results are impressive for the field of auto theft where so little research tested interventions exist. Future work will involve developing strategies that maintains the documented benefits of LPR use by a specialized unit, but also achieve the benefits associated with manual checking by a specialized unit.

Toward the Operationalization of Drug Market Stability: An Illustration Using Arrestee Data from Crack Cocaine Markets in Four Urban Communities

Despite the hypothesized link between the stability of drug markets and violence, drug market stability has yet to be operationally defined. Our aim in this paper is to demonstrate the need for reliable and valid measures of drug market stability and to test preliminary measures of market stability using existing data. Using calendar year 2000 data from interviews with 1,440 respondents from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program in four cities (Manhattan, Chicago, Portland, and San Diego), we illustrate that it is possible to operationally define the relative stability of these illegal markets. Capitalizing on the existence of comparable data collected from arrestee respondents in the same four cities in 1995, we illustrate how researchers might measure change in market stability over time and space. Our illustrations using these data suggest that drug market stability is not a simple and singular phenomenon, but rather a complex concept requiring multiple measures to elucidate.