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Stemming intimate partner violence among adults demands earlier education and skill-building supportive of healthy youth and young adult dating relationships. The current U.S.-based study examines a spectrum of youth and young adult relationship dynamics (RDs), inclusive of abusive interactions. In a nationally representative cohort of youth aged 10–18 at baseline and one parent or caregiver, survey responses regarding RDs from 618 participants ages 15–23 at wave 5 follow-up were analyzed. Latent class analysis of four positive dynamics, six problematic dynamics, and three scales of adolescent relationship abuse (ARA) were estimated, yielding four latent profiles of dating RDs. Relationships characterized by Unhealthy and Intense RDs both exhibited high probability of ARA but differed from each other in terms of other positive and problematic dynamics. Relationships characterized by Disengaged RDs had lower probability of ARA but elevated probability of awkward communications, negative feelings, social liability, and other challenging dynamics. Several baseline covariates were significantly associated with profiles of dating RDs approximately 5 years later. Younger participants were more likely to subsequently fall in an Intense or Disengaged RDs profile, as were participants with baseline emotional health problems. Further, classification in the Unhealthy RDs profile was less likely for participants reporting a better baseline relationship with their parents and more likely for those exposed to violence in childhood. These findings suggest that in addition to developmental maturity, youth and young adults would benefit from closer investigation and processing of past emotional and relational issues and traumas to foster healthier dating relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence on how hot spot policing affects community members' views of police is very limited and inconclusive. Scholars have thus called for further study of community attitudes in hot spots to guide police in the formulation of hot spot strategies—an issue that is especially salient given recent public controversy surrounding policing, particularly in the United States. Using survey responses collected in 2018 from more than 1,000 community members living or working in more than 100 hot spots across 2 mid-sized cities in the United States, this study examines how community members' perceptions of police activities in hot spots relate to their wider attitudes about police. Bivariate and multivariate analyses indicate that community members in hot spots in both cities exhibit more positive attitudes towards police along several dimensions (e.g., trust and confidence in police, views of police legitimacy, and perceptions of police responsiveness and procedural justice) when they see more frequent patrol and when they see positive police-community interactions. They have more negative views of police when they witness higher levels of investigative and enforcement activity. The findings support hot spot policing strategies that emphasize regular, systematic patrol in hot spots, complemented by positive community engagement efforts and problem-solving work. In contrast, they imply that enhanced enforcement activity in hot spots should be used judiciously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexual harassment continues to be a consistent destructive feature of American life and workplaces, especially in fields for which women are under-represented, such as law enforcement. We use one of the first nationally representative cross-sectional surveys (n = 2,867) of female and male law enforcement officers (LEOs) to assess the prevalence of workplace sexual harassment victimization. Next, we assess how risk factors are related to this harassment through multivariable modeling. We observed large differences between rates of sexual harassment for female compared to male officers on both our measures of non-physical and physical workplace sexual harassment (sexual assault). Our combined measure of non-physical sexual harassment and sexual assault of female officers (71%) was in the range found in prior research and our 41% rate for male officers is also not trivial and requires attention from law enforcement leaders. We tested two competing hypotheses on whether female officers (and possibly some male officers not meeting certain definitions of masculinity) viewed as the most threatening by virtue of their job role in the male-dominated hierarchy will have the highest probability of being a victim of workplace sexual harassment (power-threat model) or whether those viewed as the most vulnerable officers will have the highest probability of sexual harassment victimization (vulnerable-victim model). We found greater support for the vulnerable-victim model. We discuss the implications of these results for guiding training and prevention strategies to address sexual harassment in the law enforcement workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]