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Objectives: Non-communicable diseases have become the leading cause of death in middle-income countries, but mortality from injuries and infections remains high. We examined the contribution of specific causes to disparities in adult premature mortality (ages 25-64) by educational level from 1998 to 2007 in Colombia., Methods: Data from mortality registries were linked to population censuses to obtain mortality rates by educational attainment. We used Poisson regression to model trends in mortality by educational attainment and estimated the contribution of specific causes to the Slope Index of Inequality., Results: Men and women with only primary education had higher premature mortality than men and women with post-secondary education (RRmen=2.60, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.56, 2.64; RRwomen=2.36, CI: 2.31, 2.42). Mortality declined in all educational groups, but declines were significantly larger for higher-educated men and women. Homicide explained 55.1% of male inequalities while non-communicable diseases explained 62.5% of female inequalities and 27.1% of male inequalities. Infections explained a small proportion of inequalities in mortality., Conclusion: Injuries and non-communicable diseases contribute considerably to disparities in premature mortality in Colombia. Multi-sector policies to reduce both interpersonal violence and non-communicable disease risk factors are required to curb mortality disparities., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Street-connected youth are a neglected and vulnerable population, particularly in resource-constrained settings. The development of interventions and supports for this population requires insight into how they live. This study describes the social and economic characteristics of a convenience sample of street youth (SY) in Eldoret, Kenya., Methods: Participants were eligible if they were aged 12-21, living in Eldoret, spending days only (part-time), or nights and days on the street (full-time) and able and willing to consent or assent. Data were collected using a standardized interview conducted in English or Kiswahili. Binary dependent variables were having been arrested and/or jailed, and first priority for spending money (food vs. other). Nominal categorical dependent variables included major source of support, and major reason for being street-involved. Multivariable analysis used logistic regression models to examine the association of gender and level of street-involvement with social and economic factors of interest adjusting for age and length of time on the street. Data were analyzed using SAS 9.3., Results: Of the 200 SY enrolled, 41% were female, mean age of 16.3 years; 71% were on the street full-time, and 29% part-time. Compared with part-time SY, full-time SY were more likely to have been arrested (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR]: 2.33, 95% Confidence Interval [95%CI]:1.01-5.35), name food as their first spending priority (AOR: 2.57, 95%CI:1.03-6.45), have left home due to violence (AOR: 5.54, 95%CI: 1.67-18.34), and more likely to report friends on the street as a major source of support (AOR: 3.59, 95% CI: 1.01-12.82). Compared with females, males were more likely to have ever been arrested (AOR: 2.66, 95%CI:1.14-6.18), and to have ever been jailed (AOR: 3.22, 95%CI:1.47-7.02)., Conclusions: These results suggest a high degree of heterogeneity and vulnerability among SY in this setting. There is an urgent need for interventions taking into consideration these characteristics.

Although a subset of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans show aggression toward others after they return home from military service, little is known about protective mechanisms that could be bolstered to prevent violence. A national longitudinal survey was conducted between 2009 and 2011 using a random sample of veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom. One thousand and ninety veterans, from 50 states representing all military branches, completed 2 waves of data collection, 1 year apart (retention rate = 79%). The final sample resembled the U.S. military post 9/11 in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, geography, and service branch. Protective mechanisms in socioeconomic (money to cover basic needs, stable employment), psychosocial (resilience, perceiving control over one's life, social support), and physical (healthy sleep, no physical pain) domains were examined. We found these protective mechanisms predicted decreased aggression and violence at follow-up, particularly among higher risk veterans. Multivariable analyses confirmed that protective mechanisms lowered violence through their interaction with risk factors. This study identifies protective mechanisms related to decreased community violence in veterans and indicates that rehabilitation aimed at improving socioeconomic, psychosocial, and physical well-being has potential promise to reduce aggression and violence among veterans after returning home from military service., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

Objective: To assess the costs and benefits of a partnership between health services, police and local government shown to reduce violence-related injury., Methods: Benefit-cost analysis., Results: Anonymised information sharing and use led to a reduction in wounding recorded by the police that reduced the economic and social costs of violence by £6.9 million in 2007 compared with the costs the intervention city, Cardiff UK, would have experienced in the absence of the programme. This includes a gross cost reduction of £1.25 million to the health service and £1.62 million to the criminal justice system in 2007. By contrast, the costs associated with the programme were modest: setup costs of software modifications and prevention strategies were £107 769, while the annual operating costs of the system were estimated as £210 433 (2003 UK pound). The cumulative social benefit-cost ratio of the programme from 2003 to 2007 was £82 in benefits for each pound spent on the programme, including a benefit-cost ratio of 14.80 for the health service and 19.1 for the criminal justice system. Each of these benefit-cost ratios is above 1 across a wide range of sensitivity analyses., Conclusions: An effective information-sharing partnership between health services, police and local government in Cardiff, UK, led to substantial cost savings for the health service and the criminal justice system compared with 14 other cities in England and Wales designated as similar by the UK government where this intervention was not implemented.

Background and Objective: Effective violence interventions are not widely implemented, and there is little information about the cost of violence interventions. Our goal is to report the cost of a brief intervention delivered in the emergency department that reduces violence among 14- to 18-year-olds., Methods: Primary outcomes were total costs of implementation and the cost per violent event or violence consequence averted. We used primary and secondary data sources to derive the costs to implement a brief motivational interviewing intervention and to identify the number of self-reported violent events (eg, severe peer aggression, peer victimization) or violence consequences averted. One-way and multi-way sensitivity analyses were performed., Results: Total fixed and variable annual costs were estimated at $71,784. If implemented, 4208 violent events or consequences could be prevented, costing $17.06 per event or consequence averted. Multi-way sensitivity analysis accounting for variable intervention efficacy and different cost estimates resulted in a range of $3.63 to $54.96 per event or consequence averted., Conclusions: Our estimates show that the cost to prevent an episode of youth violence or its consequences is less than the cost of placing an intravenous line and should not present a significant barrier to implementation.

To develop satisfactorily, adolescents require good health-related quality of life (QOL, including physical health, psychological health, social relationships and living environment). However, for poorly understood reasons, it is often lacking, especially among immigrants with lower family and socioeconomic resources. This study assessed health-related QOL of European and non-European immigrant adolescents and the contributions of socioeconomic difficulties, unhealthy behaviors, and violence. It included 1,559 middle-school adolescents from north-eastern France (mean age 13.5, SD 1.3; 1,451 French adolescents, 54 European immigrants and 54 non-European immigrants), who completed a self-administered questionnaire including sex, age, socioeconomic characteristics (family structure, parents' education, occupation, and income), unhealthy behaviors (uses of tobacco/alcohol/cannabis/hard drugs, obesity, and involvement in violence), having sustained violence, sexual abuse, and the four QOL domains measured with the World Health Organization's WHOQOL-BREF (poor: score < 25PthP percentile). Data were analyzed using logistic regression models. Poor physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and living environment affected more European immigrants (26% to 35%) and non-European immigrants (43% to 54%) than French adolescents (21% to 26%). European immigrants had a higher risk of poor physical health and living environment (gender-age-adjusted odds ratio 2.00 and 1.88, respectively) while non-European immigrants had a higher risk for all poor physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and living environment (3.41, 2.07, 3.25, and 3.79, respectively). Between 20% and 58% of these risks were explained by socioeconomic difficulties, parts of which overlapped with unhealthy behaviors and violence. The associations between the two sets of covariates greatly differed among French adolescents and immigrants. Poor QOL was more common among European and non-European immigrants due to socioeconomic difficulties and associated unhealthy behaviors and violence. The different risk patterns observed between French adolescents and immigrants may help prevention.

Research on the effects of political conflict has focused predominantly on the association between violence exposure and psychological trauma. This paper expands that focus. We broaden the assessment of health beyond the conventional spotlight on trauma-related stress to include culturally derived measures of health, and we assess the association between a broad array of political and economic conditions and health. Household interviews were conducted in 2011 with a representative sample of 508 30-40 year olds in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt; response rate = 97%). The four dependent variables were limits on functioning due to health, feeling broken or destroyed (both culturally derived measures of health), feelings of depression and trauma-related stress. Twenty-four predictor variables assessed multiple dimensions of political conflict and background characteristics. All four measures of health and suffering were associated with human insecurity and resource adequacy. Exposure to political violence was associated only with trauma-related stress. These findings support the increasing recognition that human insecurity and chronic economic constraints in the oPt broadly threaten health, perhaps more so than direct exposure to violence. Ultimately, a political solution is required, but in the meantime, efforts to reduce insecurity and improve economic conditions may improve health and reduce suffering in the oPt.

Aims: The aim of the study was to assess the association between alcohol outlet density and violence controlling for alcohol expenditures and the density of other retailers., Methods: Cross-sectional ecological study of 1816 block groups in Philadelphia. We obtained 2010 data for aggravated assaults, alcohol outlets, alcohol expenditures, business points, land use and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. We mapped the spatial distribution of alcohol outlets and aggravated assaults using a geographic information system. We estimated the association between assault density and total, on-premise and off-premise alcohol outlet densities using spatial regression models and controlling for the covariates of urban crime rates, alcohol expenditures, and the presence of other general and risky commercial retail outlets., Results: The strong and positive association between alcohol outlet density and violence remained after controlling for alcohol expenditures and the density of other retailers., Conclusion: Findings support the concept that off-premise alcohol outlets in the neighborhood environment may impact health and social outcomes. The positive outlet-violence association in the face of these controls means it is not an association due solely to alcohol availability or to retail density. It also suggests that there is something unique about alcohol outlets or their density that makes them crime generators and links them to violence.

Rapid urbanization globally threatens to increase the risk to mental health and requires a rethinking of the relationship between urban poverty and mental health. The aim of this article is to reveal the cyclic nature of this relationship: Concentrated urban poverty cultivates mental illness, while the resulting mental illness reinforces poverty. The authors used theories about social disorganization and crime to explore the mechanisms through which the urban environment can contribute to mental health problems. They present some data on crime, substance abuse, and social control to support their claim that mental illness reinforces poverty. The authors argue that, to interrupt this cycle and improve outcomes, social workers and policymakers must work together to implement a comprehensive mental health care system that emphasizes prevention, reaches young people, crosses traditional health care provision boundaries, and involves the entire community to break this cycle and improve the outcomes of those living in urban poverty.

We evaluate race/ethnicity and nativity-based disparities in three different types of intimate partner violence (IPV) and examine how economic hardship, maternal economic dependency, maternal gender beliefs, and neighborhood disadvantage influence these disparities. Using nationally representative data from urban mothers of young children who are living with their intimate partners (N = 1,886), we estimate a series of unadjusted and adjusted logit models on mothers' reports of physical assault, emotional abuse, and coercion. When their children were age 3, more than one in five mothers were living with a partner who abused them. The prevalence of any IPV was highest among Hispanic (26%) and foreign-born (35%) mothers. Economic hardship, economic dependency on a romantic partner, and traditional gender beliefs each increased women's risk for exposure to one or more types of IPV, whereas neighborhood conditions were not significantly related to IPV in adjusted models. These factors also explained most of the racial/ethnic and nativity disparities in IPV. Policies and programs that reduce economic hardship among women with young children, promote women's economic independence, and foster gender equity in romantic partnerships can potentially reduce multiple forms of IPV.

Youth development and violence prevention are two sides of the same public policy. The focus of much theoretical and empirical effort is identifying delinquency risks and intervening. Given the great costs of homicide and the historically high nationwide prison population, new policies must address increasing violence and rising expenses. Treatments of prenatal care, home visitation, bullying prevention, alcohol-substance abuse education, alternative thinking promotion, mentoring, life skills training, rewards for graduation and employment, functional family and multi-systemic therapy, and multi-dimensional foster care are effective, because they ameliorate age-specific risks for delinquency. At present, these interventions only yield a 10-40% diversion from crime however. Returns on investment (ROIs) vary from $1 to $98. Targeting empirical treatments to those determined to be most at risk, based on statistical models or actuarial testing, and using electronic surveillance for non-violent prisoners significantly diverted youth from violence, improving ROI, while simultaneously saving costs., (Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

CONTEXT Economic difficulties at the individual level can lead to a number of behavioral problems, including substance abuse and delinquent behaviors. OBJECTIVE To examine the influence of a nationwide adverse economic environment during infancy, specifically, the high unemployment rates during and after the 1980 and 1981-1982 recessions, on rates of subsequent adolescent substance use and delinquent behaviors. DESIGN We used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and estimated logit regressions to examine the effect of changes in unemployment rates during infancy on the incidence of adolescent behavioral problems, controlling for known youth, family, and environmental risk factors. SETTING Adolescents living in the United States in 1997. PARTICIPANTS Nationally representative sample of 8984 adolescents born from January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1984. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Probability of engaging in substance use (marijuana, smoking, alcohol, and hard [ie, illegal] drugs) and delinquent behaviors (arrest, handgun use, gang affiliation, petty and major theft, property destruction, and assaultive behavior). RESULTS Exposure to a 1% deviation from mean regional unemployment rates at the age of 1 year was associated with an increase in the odds ratios of engaging in marijuana use (1.09 [95% CI, 1.04-1.14]), smoking (1.07 [1.03-1.11]), alcohol use (1.06 [1.02-1.10]), arrest (1.17 [1.09-1.25]), gang affiliation (1.09 [1.00-1.19]), and petty (1.06 [1.01-1.10]) and major theft (1.11 [1.05-1.18]). No significant associations were noted with use of hard drugs, property destruction, and assaultive behavior. CONCLUSIONS The macroeconomic environment during infancy can have serious long-term effects on substance use and delinquent behavior. These potential long-term effects can play an important role in policy making for adolescent mental health care.

Background and Objectives: No recent international studies provide evidence about its prevalence, trends, or social determinants of physical fighting in adolescents. We studied cross-national epidemiologic trends over time in the occurrence of frequent physical fighting, demographic variations in reported trends, and national wealth and income inequality as correlates., Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were administered in school settings in 2002, 2006, and 2010. Participants (N = 493874) included eligible and consenting students aged 11, 13, and 15 years in sampled schools from 30 mainly European and North American countries. Individual measures included engagement in frequent physical fighting, age, gender, participation in multiple risk behaviors, victimization by bullying, and family affluence. Contextual measures included national income inequality, absolute wealth and homicide rates. Temporal measure was survey cycle (year)., Results: Frequent physical fighting declined over time in 19 (63%) of 30 countries (from descriptive then multiple Poisson regression analyses). Contextual measures of absolute wealth (relative risk 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.93-0.99 per 1 SD increase in gross domestic product per capita) but not income inequality (relative risk 1.01, 95% confidence interval 0.98-1.05 per 1 SD increase) related to lower levels of engagement in fighting. Other risk factors identified were male gender, younger age (11 years), multiple risk behaviors, victimization by bullying, and national homicide rates., Conclusions: Between 2002 and 2010, adolescent physical fighting declined in most countries. Specific groups of adolescents require targeted violence reduction programs. Possible determinants responsible for the observed declines are discussed.

This article gives a detailed account of the cocaine industry and the related violence in the Peruvian Upper Huallaga. It is argued that in this cocaine producing region violence increased during state-led forced eradication operations of the coca plants. Most of the violent incidents were closely related to the diminishing cocaine industry, but they were also related to the actions of the state security forces. Instead of receiving support from the state's security apparatus, the population mobilized its own forces to fight the violence. As will be argued, the causes of violence in this cocaine enclave are part of a dynamic interaction amongst many factors - an interaction that is influenced by the local context, a partial state vacuum, and the social utility and the economic advantages of violence. One needs to be aware that motivations of those who engage in the violent behaviour can change over time, as underlying power structures are influenced by changes in local conditions. The study covers an in-depth account of events taking place in the Upper Huallaga during the years 2003-2007. The research material was collected by several ethnographical fieldwork methods., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Brazil, the 6th largest world economy, has experienced rapid economic, demographic, and social structural changes during the last decade. Notwithstanding, Brazil being one of the most unequal societies worldwide, 40 million of 200 million Brazilians have moved from poverty to middle-class standards during this period. This review analyzes the success of different Brazilian initiatives aiming to reduce drug consumption-related harms, as well as the failed attempts to curb structural violence, despite some very recent initiatives have yet to be fully implemented and evaluated.

Objectives: To obtain comprehensive, reliable data on the direct cost of pediatric abusive head trauma in New Zealand, and to use this data to evaluate the possible cost-benefit of a national primary prevention program., Methods: A 5 year cohort of infants with abusive head trauma admitted to hospital in Auckland, New Zealand was reviewed. We determined the direct costs of hospital care (from hospital and Ministry of Health financial records), community rehabilitation (from the Accident Compensation Corporation), special education (from the Ministry of Education), investigation and child protection (from the Police and Child Protective Services), criminal trials (from the Police, prosecution and defence), punishment of offenders (from the Department of Corrections) and life-time care for moderate or severe disability (from the Accident Compensation Corporation). Analysis of the possible cost-utility of a national primary prevention program was undertaken, using the costs established in our cohort, recent New Zealand national data on the incidence of pediatric abusive head trauma, international data on quality of life after head trauma, and published international literature on prevention programs., Results: There were 52 cases of abusive head trauma in the sample. Hospital costs totaled $NZ2,433,340, child protection $NZ1,560,123, police investigation $NZ1,842,237, criminal trials $NZ3,214,020, punishment of offenders $NZ4,411,852 and community rehabilitation $NZ2,895,848. Projected education costs for disabled survivors were $NZ2,452,148, and the cost of projected lifetime care was $NZ33,624,297. Total costs were $NZ52,433,864, averaging $NZ1,008,344 per child. Cost-utility analysis resulted in a strongly positive economic argument for primary prevention, with expected case scenarios showing lowered net costs with improved health outcomes., Conclusions: Pediatric abusive head trauma is very expensive, and on a conservative estimate the costs of acute hospitalization represent no more than 4% of lifetime direct costs. If shaken baby prevention programs are effective, there is likely to be a strong economic argument for their implementation. This study also provides robust data for future cost-benefit analysis in the field of abusive head trauma prevention., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Humans have perennially faced threats of violence from other humans and have developed functional strategies for surviving those threats. Five studies examined the relation between threats of violence and agreeableness at the level of nations, individuals, and situations. People living in countries with higher military spending (Study 1) and those who chronically perceive threats from others (Study 2) were more agreeable. However, this threat-linked agreeableness was selective (Studies 3-5). Participants primed with threat were more agreeable and willing to help familiar others but were less agreeable and willing to help unfamiliar others. Additionally, people from large families, for whom affiliation may be a salient response to threat, were more likely than people from small families to shift in agreeableness. Returning to the national level, military spending was associated with increased trust in ingroup members but decreased trust in outgroups. Together, these findings demonstrate that agreeableness is selectively modulated by threats of violence.

Historically, organized violence has been a chronic pervasive problem in Haiti. We set out to elicit Haitians' views on its effects to guide the development of interventions. In March 2006 we studied a population in the slum area of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, and the nearby towns of Milot and Limbe. A convenience sample of adults was asked to free list all current problems affecting victims of organized violence. Two major categories emerged: psychological problems and financial problems. The psychological problems of "feeling startled and loss of self control," "sadness/grief," "continuing to suffer from reliving/reexperiencing past events," "problems in the head/mental problems," "deep suffering in the heart," and "thinking too much" emerged as themes from key-informant interviews. These may correspond to constructs of depression, dysthymia, and anxiety disorders including posttraumatic stress disorder in psychiatric nosology. The development of effective interventions can therefore consider those known to be effective for these problems in other settings. However in selecting interventions, considerations must also include local acceptability, perceived causes of problems, and their social effects.

Objectives: Children victimized by violence are often treated in the emergency department (ED). However, our understanding of the magnitude and financial costs of this patient population is inadequate. The authors examined the scope, risk factors for, and financial cost of ED visits for intentional injury in children in the United States over time., Methods: Using data from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) from 2000 through 2008, the records of children aged 0 to 17 years evaluated in an ED for intentional injuries were examined. Nationally representative rates of ED visits for intentional injuries, the proportion of ED visits accounted for by children with intentional injuries, and risk factors for intentional injury visits were calculated. The Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Cost of Injury Reports was used to generate the medical costs accrued by intentional injuries in children., Results: Almost 340,000 children were treated in U.S. EDs each year from 2000 through 2008 for intentional injuries, comprising 1.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.1% to 1.4%) of all U.S. pediatric ED visits. The rate of ED visits for violent injuries has not changed over time. In 2008, 49 children per 10,000 (95% CI = 36 to 61) were treated in the ED for a violent injury. In a multivariate model, increasing age, residing in a metropolitan area, African American race, and the lack of private insurance were independent predictors of intentional injury visits among children. In 2005, the aggregate medical cost of intentionally inflicted injuries in children in the United States was $765 million., Conclusions: ED visits among children for violent injury still represent an important clinical, public health, and economic challenge. The ED could be considered as a potential venue for prevention and intervention efforts., (© 2012 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.)

Violence and addictions produce a great impact over persons, families, and communities. They impair their normal development and affect the possibility of individuals to fully grow. There are many different factors involved in their presentation, so proposed solutions must come from different sectors with an integrated point of view. The prospects of an adequate individual and collective development depend on the efficacy of the actions taken, from the public health point of view.

In the mid-1970s, following a series of police raids on prostitution inside downtown nightclubs, a community of approximately 200 sex workers moved into Vancouver's West End neighborhood, where a small stroll had operated since the early 1970s. This paper examines the contributions made by three male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals of color to the culture of on-street prostitution in the West End. The trans women's stories address themes of fashion, working conditions, money, community formation, violence, and resistance to well-organized anti-prostitution forces. These recollections enable me to bridge and enrich trans history and prostitution history – two fields of inquiry that have under-represented the participation of trans women in the sex industry across the urban West. Acutely familiar with the hazards inherent in a criminalized, stigmatized trade, trans sex workers in the West End manufactured efficacious strategies of harm reduction, income generation, safety planning, and community building. Eschewing the label of “victim”, they leveraged their physical size and style, charisma, contempt towards pimps, earning capacity, and seniority as the first workers on the stroll to assume leadership within the broader constituency of “hookers on Davie Street”. I discover that their short-lived outdoor brothel culture offered only a temporary bulwark against the inevitability of eviction via legal injunction in July 1984, and the subsequent rise in lethal violence against all prostitutes in Vancouver, including MTF transsexuals.

In 1994, 1 million Rwandans were violently killed in only 100 days. Devastating for some Rwandan survivors was the significant role that some Catholic parishes and leaders took in ignoring, facilitating, and even perpetuating the genocide. This article seeks to understand how Rwandan genocide survivors draw on religion as they negotiate their postgenocide identities in the United States and comprehend their current faiths, beliefs, and practices. Based on qualitative interviews with Rwandan survivors now located within the United States, I argue that the experiences of religiosity postgenocide serve as both an obstacle and a resource in postgenocide life, creating significant individual and local ramifications for community engagement, reconciliation, and trauma recovery.

The female body is central to the performance art, poetry and blog site interventions of Guatemalan Regina José Galindo. While Galindo is best known for her performance work, this article compares the hereto overlooked, distinctive and often shocking representations of the female body across her multimedia outputs. We first consider the ways in which, in all three media, Galindo presents an ‘excessive’, carnivalised, grotesque and abject female body. Second, we analyse representations of the female body that has been subjected to violence at a private and public level. In so doing, we show how Galindo not only contests hegemonic visions of gender and (national) identity but also challenges the viewer/reader to engage with, rather than look away from, the violence to which women are subjected in patriarchal society.

The effects of lynchings on criminal justice outcomes have seldom been examined. Recent findings also are inconsistent about the effects of race on imprisonments. This study uses a pooled time-series design to assess lynching and racial threat effects on state imprisonments from 1972 to 2000. After controlling for Republican strength, conservatism, and other factors, lynch rates explain the growth in admission rates. The findings also show that increases in black residents produce subsequent expansions in imprisonments that likely are attributable to white reactions to this purported menace. But after the percentage of blacks reaches a substantial threshold—and the potential black vote becomes large enough to begin to reduce these harsh punishments—reductions in prison admissions occur. These results also confirm a political version of racial threat theory by indicating that increased Republican political strength produces additional imprisonments.

The present study tested the relationships between macro-level violence and birthweight in structurally disadvantaged communities in the District of Columbia. The study hypothesized that both rates of violence and violence "uncertainty" (the latter was operationalized as within-census tract residual change scores in violence), should be inversely associated with birthweight among all live singleton births in DC from 2000 to 2002. Using mixed models, the study found that (1) patterns of violence and violence uncertainty were significantly associated with birthweight among mothers residing in structurally disadvantaged communities, and (2) these findings held for Black and Hispanic, but not white, mothers. The study argues that urban ecological researchers should begin to consider not just how rates (or levels) of violence influence health and other social outcomes in communities, but also the effects of violence uncertainty as a source of unpredictable risk and territorial disruption., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This research explores the transformation of rape crisis centers and whether directors, staff, interns, and volunteers see changes as beneficial or detrimental to rape crisis centers and the victims they serve. Data from 63 interviews with directors, staff, interns, and volunteers from six rape crisis centers located in four East Coast states indicate that although centers may have been formed for different reasons depending on when they opened, all have become more professional, rely less on volunteers, engage in more collaboration with other agencies, and have largely abandoned their traditional activism agenda. Traditional activism through political protests and membership in consciousness raising groups has been replaced by community education and outreach. Some of these changes are viewed as positive whereas others are viewed as negative.

Background: Alcohol related violence continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. In particular, there is substantial evidence of an association between alcohol outlets and assault. However, because the specific geographic relationships between alcohol outlets and the distribution of violence remains obscured, it is important to identify the spatial linkages that may exist, enhancing public health efforts to curb both violence and morbidity., Methods: The present study utilizes police-recorded data on simple and aggravated assaults in Cincinnati, Ohio. Addresses of alcohol outlets for Cincinnati, including all bars, alcohol-serving restaurants, and off-premise liquor and convenience stores were obtained from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control and geocoded for analysis. A combination of proximity analysis, spatial cluster detection approaches and a geographic information system were used to identify clusters of alcohol outlets and the distribution of violence around them., Results: A brief review of the empirical work relating to alcohol outlet density and violence is provided, noting that the majority of this literature is cross-sectional and ecological in nature, yielding a somewhat haphazard and aggregate view of how outlet type(s) and neighborhood characteristics like social organization and land use are related to assaultive violence. The results of the statistical analysis for Cincinnati suggest that while alcohol outlets are not problematic per se, assaultive violence has a propensity to cluster around agglomerations of alcohol outlets. This spatial relationship varies by distance and is also related to the characteristics of the alcohol outlet agglomeration. Specifically, spatially dense distributions of outlets appear to be more prone to clusters of assaultive violence when compared to agglomerations with a lower density of outlets., Conclusion: With a more thorough understanding of the spatial relationships between alcohol outlets and the distribution of assaults, policymakers in urban areas can make more informed regulatory decisions regarding alcohol licenses. Further, this research suggests that public health officials and epidemiologists need to develop a better understanding of what actually occurs in and around alcohol outlets, determining what factors (whether outlet, neighborhood, or spatially related) help fuel their relationship with violence and other alcohol-related harm.

Agitation among psychiatric inpatients (particularly those diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) is common and, unless recognized early and managed effectively, can rapidly escalate to potentially dangerous behaviors, including physical violence. Inpatient aggression and violence have substantial adverse psychological and physical consequences for both patients and providers, and they are costly to the healthcare system. In contrast to the commonly held view that inpatient violence occurs without warning or can be predicted by "static" risk factors, such as patient demographics or clinical characteristics, research indicates that violence is usually preceded by observable behaviors, especially non-violent agitation. When agitation is recognized, staff should employ nonpharmacological de-escalation strategies and, if the behavior continues, offer pharmacological treatment to calm patients rapidly. Given the poor therapeutic efficacy and potential for adverse events associated with physical restraint and seclusion, and the potential adverse sequelae of involuntary drug treatment, these interventions should be considered last resorts. Pharmacological agents used to treat agitation include benzodiazepines and first- and second-generation antipsychotic drugs. Although no currently available agent is ideal, recommendations for selecting among them are provided. There remains an unmet need for a non-invasive and rapidly acting agent that effectively calms without excessively sedating patients, addresses the patient's underlying psychiatric symptoms, and is reasonably safe and tolerable. A treatment with these characteristics could substantially reduce the clinical and economic burden of agitation in the inpatient psychiatric setting.

Background: Alcohol causes a considerable criminal burden on the Canadian society. The purpose of this study is to estimate the avoidable burden and avoidable costs of alcohol-attributable criminality in Canada for the year 2002., Methods: The impact of the following six alcohol policy interventions relative to baseline costs obtained from the Second Canadian Cost Study (a cost-of-illness study) were modelled: taxation increases, lowering the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) legal limit from 0.08% to 0.05%, zero BAC restriction for all drivers under the age of 21, increasing the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) from 19 to 21 years, a Safer Bars intervention, and brief interventions. In addition to the six interventions that reduce alcohol consumption, we also modelled one intervention that could increase alcohol consumption and alcohol-attributable costs: the change from a government monopoly to privatized alcohol sales. The effect of these interventions was modelled for the Canadian population older than 15 years of age with the exception of BAC restriction and MLDA, which were modelled for the age group 19-21., Results: Results revealed that the intervention which appears to be most effective in preventing drinking and driving incidents in Canada was lowering the BAC level. This intervention was estimated to reduce this type of alcohol-attributable crime compared with the baseline scenario by 19.1%. The Safer Bars programme was found to be the most effective measure to avoid homicide and other violent crimes (reductions of 3.4% were observed). Brief interventions were observed as the most effective measure to avoid other alcohol-attributable criminal activities, estimated at reducing them by 2.6%. The results also indicated that substantial increases in all types of criminality examined in this study could occur if all Canadian provinces were to privatize alcohol sales., Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the implementation of proven effective population-based interventions can reduce alcohol-attributable criminal burden and its costs to the Canadian society to a considerable degree., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Violence is amongst the primary concerns of communities around the world and research has demonstrated links between violence and the illicit drug trade, particularly in urban settings. Given the growing emphasis on evidence-based policy-making, and the ongoing severe drug market violence in Mexico and other settings, we conducted a systematic review to examine the impacts of drug law enforcement on drug market violence. We conducted a systematic review using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Specifically, we undertook a search of English language electronic databases (Academic Search Complete, PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, Social Service Abstracts, PAIS International and Lexis-Nexis), the Internet (Google, Google Scholar), and article reference lists, from database inception to January 24, 2011. Overall, 15 studies were identified that evaluated the impact of drug law enforcement on drug market violence, including 11 (73%) longitudinal analyses using linear regression, 2 (13%) mathematical drug market models, and 2 (13%) qualitative studies. Fourteen (93%) studies reported an adverse impact of drug law enforcement on levels of violence. Ten of the 11 (91%) studies employing longitudinal qualitative analyses found a significant association between drug law enforcement and drug market violence. Our findings suggest that increasing drug law enforcement is unlikely to reduce drug market violence. Instead, the existing evidence base suggests that gun violence and high homicide rates may be an inevitable consequence of drug prohibition and that disrupting drug markets can paradoxically increase violence. In this context, and since drug prohibition has not meaningfully reduced drug supply, alternative regulatory models will be required if drug supply and drug market violence are to be meaningfully reduced., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Aims: To describe the characteristics of men and women exposed to physical violence, to identify risk factors for violence exposure and to quantify the attributable healthcare costs of violence., Methods: The Danish national health interview surveys of 2000 and 2005 included data on exposure to defined forms of physical violence over the last 12 months. Respondents who reported exposure to violence during the past year were compared with a reference group of non-exposed respondents, and data were merged with the National Health Registers. We identified risk factors for violence by logistic regression models and used OLS regression for quantification of attributable healthcare costs of violence, including somatic and psychiatric admissions, outpatient contacts, prescriptions and primary health services; and analyzed intimate partner violence separately., Results: Young age, being divorced and drinking more than the recommended amount of alcohol per week were risk factors for violence both for men and women. Total annual healthcare costs, adjusted for age and deliveries, were 787 euros higher on average for women exposed to violence than for non-exposed women, mainly related to psychiatric treatment. For women, no significant cost differences existed between victims of partner violence and non-victims. The total healthcare costs were not higher for exposed men than for non-exposed men, but male victims of partner violence incurred significantly higher costs., Conclusions: Primarily due to costs of psychiatric treatment, male and female victims of violence had higher total healthcare costs than non-exposed people. Whether mental health problems increase the risk of violence exposure or violence is a particular risk factor for health problems cannot be assessed by cross-sectional data alone.

Here we propose a new theory for the origins and evolution of human warfare as a complex social phenomenon involving several behavioral traits, including aggression, risk taking, male bonding, ingroup altruism, outgroup xenophobia, dominance and subordination, and territoriality, all of which are encoded in the human genome. Among the family of great apes only chimpanzees and humans engage in war; consequently, warfare emerged in their immediate common ancestor that lived in patrilocal groups who fought one another for females. The reasons for warfare changed when the common ancestor females began to immigrate into the groups of their choice, and again, during the agricultural revolution.

In the 1960s and 1970s African American “supergangs” emerged in Chicago. Many scholars have touted the “prosocial” goals of these gangs but fail to contextualize them in the larger history of black organized crime. Thus, they have overlooked how gang members sought to reclaim the underground economy in their neighborhoods. Yet even as gangs drove out white organized crime figures, they often lacked the know-how to reorganize the complex informal economy. Inexperienced gang members turned to extreme violence, excessive recruitment programs, and unforgiving extortion schemes to take power over criminal activities. These methods alienated black citizens and exacerbated tensions with law enforcement. In addition, the political shelter enjoyed by the previous generation of black criminals was turned into pervasive pressure to break up street gangs. Black street gangs fulfilled their narrow goal of community control of vice. Their interactions with their neighbors, however, remained contentious.

This article analyzes the impact of state policies since the 1970s on household food security in several Mapuche communities in the Araucanía region of Chile (Region IX). The author highlights key transformations in the national economy and food system and endeavors to link those to local phenomena, in particular the absorption of the local livelihood strategies and food systems into capitalist markets and the high incidences of food insecurity. The article concludes that a reconceptualization of macroeconomic and indigenous policies are required to rebuild the material and social foundations of rural Mapuche communities that provide the bases from which their inhabitants can reconstruct a mutually beneficial relationship with the broader Chilean society and avert the continued acceleration of tension and violence.

In 1862 His Honor, Justice Johnston, issued his instructions to the jury of the New Zealand Supreme Court for two simultaneous rape trials – the alleged rape of a European woman by two Māori men, and an alleged “assault with intent to commit a rape” of a Māori woman by a European man. This article argues that those instructions should be read within an historiographical critique of British colonial expansion, print capitalism and violence. Drawing on feminist postcolonial theorizing the question posed here, is, “What is the historical, ideological context for a newspaper reporting of the possible rape of a Māori woman in 1862?

The global attention focused on sexual violence in the DRC has not only contributed to an image of the Congolese army as a vestige of pre-modern barbarism, populated by rapists, and bearing no resemblance to the world of modern armies; it has also shaped gender and defence reform initiatives. These initiatives have become synonymous with combating sexual violence, reflecting an assumption that the gendered dynamics of the army are already known. Crucial questions such as the ‘feminization’ of the armed forces are consequently neglected. Based on in-depth interviews with soldiers in the Congolese armed forces, this article analyses the discursive strategies male soldiers employ in relation to the feminization of the army. In the light of the need to reform the military and military masculinities, the article discusses how globalized discourses and practices render the Congolese military a highly globalized sphere. It also highlights the particular and local ways in which military identities are produced through gender, and concludes that a simple inclusion of women in the armed forces in order to render men less violent might not have the pacifying effect intended.

This article examines the delicate ideological maneuverings that shaped American colonial constructions of savagery, civility, and gender in the wake of the Bud Dajo massacre in the Philippines's Muslim south in 1906. It looks particularly at shifting notions of femininity and masculinity as these related to episodes of violence and colonial control. The article concludes that, while the Bud Dajo massacre was a terrible black mark on the American military's record in Mindanao and Sulu, colonial officials ultimately used the event to positively affirm existing discourses of power and justification, which helped to sustain and guide military rule in the Muslim south for another seven years.

Places in which there is a strong spatial connection between violence and drug activity can often evoke particular stereotypes. They are believed to be places marked by high levels of social disorganisation, unemployment, disorder and racial heterogeneity. Yet scholars have argued that the spatial relationship between drug market activity and violence is more complicated and that other factors may explain this geographical connection. In the first article of this two-part series, different types of spatial analysis were employed to describe crime concentrations of drugs and violence. Evidence was found that challenges the notion that places with drug activity are inevitably more violent. This second paper examines what factors predict these variations in drug–violence spatial patterns in Seattle when derived using different spatial methods. The findings indicate that racial composition, disorder and unemployment may not be as salient as once believed in predicting places that are violent drug markets.

Youth violence in African American communities is still considered to be at epidemic proportions. The traditional risk factors for youth violence (i.e. delinquent friends, poverty, drug use, carrying a weapon etc.) do not account for the disproportionate overrepresentation of African American males. This study sought to better understand the propensity for violence among African American males ages 14-19 years (N=224) from four different programmatic sites: a Philadelphia high school, an African-centered charter high school, a youth detention facility, and a program that serves youth who are on probation or parole. The findings indicate that internalized racism enhances the variance explained above the variables typically explored in the delinquency and criminology literature. If further research can replicate these findings, this has implications for the content and direction of prevention approaches with African American male youth.

Using a national probability sample of adolescents (12–17), this study applies general strain theory to how violent victimization, vicarious violent victimization, and dual violent victimization affect juvenile violent/property crime and drug use. In addition, the mediating effect and moderating effect of depression, low social control, and delinquent peer association on the victimization–delinquency relationship is also examined. Based on SEM analyses and contingency tables, the results indicate that all three types of violent victimization have significant and positive direct effects on violent/property crime and drug use. In addition, the expected mediating effects and moderating effects are also found. Limitations and future directions are discussed.