Protective Factors for Sexual Violence: Understanding How Trajectories Relate to Perpetration in High School

Adolescent sexual violence (SV) perpetration is a significant public health problem. Many risk factors for perpetration are known, but less is known about what protects youth from perpetration, or how protective factors change over time. This longitudinal study reports trajectories of four potential protective factors for SV perpetration (empathy, parental monitoring, social support, and school belonging) across middle and high school and examines their relationship to SV perpetration in high school. Findings reveal that youth who identified as SV perpetrators had significantly lower mean empathy scores (d =  - 0.18, 95 % CI [-0.26, -0.10]) and social support scores (d =  - 0.05, 95 % CI [-0.14, -0.03]) at the beginning of middle school than non-perpetrators. We also found that youth who identified as SV perpetrators had a quicker deceleration in parental monitoring (slopes) and empathy from middle to high school, compared to non-perpetrators. Within-sex differences emerged; significant differences in slopes were detected for school belonging between male perpetrators and male non-perpetrators (Wald test = 3.76 (1), p = .05) and between female perpetrators and female non-perpetrators (Wald test = 3.95(1), p = .04). Significant differences in slopes for empathy between female perpetrators and female non-perpetrators (Wald test = 4.76(1), p = .03) were also detected. No differences were found between male and female SV perpetrators for either empathy or school belonging. These findings have implications for the content and timing of adolescent SV prevention efforts. Intervention in adolescence, involving parents and schools in a comprehensive, multi-level approach, may be effective in preventing SV perpetration.

Mixture deconvolution by massively parallel sequencing of microhaplotypes

Short tandem repeat polymorphisms (STRs) are the standard markers for forensic human identification. STRs are highly polymorphic loci analyzed using a direct PCR-to-CE (capillary electrophoresis) approach. However, STRs have limitations particularly when dealing with complex mixtures. These include slippage of the polymerase during amplification causing stutter fragments that can be indistinguishable from minor contributor alleles, preferential amplification of shorter alleles, and limited number of loci that can be effectively co-amplified with CE. Massively parallel sequencing (MPS), by enabling a higher level of multiplexing and actual sequencing of the DNA, provides forensic practitioners an increased power of discrimination offered by the sequence of STR alleles and access to new sequence-based markers. Microhaplotypes (i.e., microhaps or MHs) are emerging multi-allelic loci of two or more SNPs within < 300 bp that are highly polymorphic, have alleles all of the same length, and do not generate stutter fragments. The growing number of loci described in the literature along with initial mixture investigations supports the potential for microhaps to aid in mixture interpretation and the purpose of this study was to demonstrate that practically. A panel of 36 microhaplotypes, selected from a set of over 130 loci, was tested with the Ion S5™ MPS platform (Thermo Fisher Scientific) on single-source samples, synthetic two-to-six person mixtures at different concentrations/contributor ratios, and on crime scene-like samples. The panel was tested both in multiplex with STRs and SNPs and individually. The analysis of single-source samples showed that the allele coverage ratio across all loci was 0.88 ± 0.08 which is in line with the peak height ratio of STR alleles in CE. In mixture studies, results showed that the input DNA can be much higher than with conventional CE, without the risk of oversaturating the detection system, enabling an increased sensitivity for the minor contributor in imbalanced mixtures with abundant amounts of DNA. Furthermore, the absence of stutter fragments simplifies the interpretation. On casework-like samples, MPS of MHs enabled the detection of a higher number of alleles from minor donors than MPS and CE of STRs. These results demonstrated that MPS of microhaplotypes can complement STRs and enhance human identification practices when dealing with complex imbalanced mixtures.

The reciprocal lagged effects of substance use and recidivism in a prisoner reentry context

BACKGROUND

Much work has investigated the association between substance use, crime, and recidivism, yet little scholarship has examined these associations longitudinally among samples of recently released prisoners. We examine the lagged reciprocal effects of hard substance use and crime, among other covariates, in the context of the prisoner reentry process.

METHODS

We rely on data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI) evaluation and employ cross-lagged panel models to examine short-term changes in substance use and crime over time among a large sample of high-risk, former prisoners (N = 1697).

RESULTS

Substance use marginally predicted increased odds of rearrest at one wave, and rearrest significantly (p < .05) predicted increased odds of substance use at another. As such, the results provide limited evidence for a degree of lagged mutual causation; associations vary over the reentry process and are complicated by other realities of life after prison. A key finding is that both behaviors are more consistently influenced by other factors, such as service needs and instrumental and emotional supports.

CONCLUSIONS

Although there are relationships between drug use and criminal behavior, these behaviors alone are insufficient explanations for one another in an adult reentry population. Alternatively, the compounding social and personal needs of the reentry population, and the extent to which they received support or services to address these needs, appear to have the strongest influence on both behaviors in the reentry context.