Criminal justice and the drug-abusing offender: policy issues of coerced treatment

Criminal justice populations, including arrestees, probationers, inmates and parolees, have become increasingly involved with drugs of abuse. These numbers have seriously impacted the criminal justice system from enforcement to the courts, corrections, and subsequent legal supervision agencies. Prevalence of substance abuse in these populations is reported, as well as the effectiveness of community-based and corrections-based treatment in effecting behavioral changes to reduce drug demand. The characteristics of successful intervention programs are described and an ideal model proposed for better integrating community treatment and criminal justice intervention efforts.     

The effects of single-component extinction of a three-component serial CS on resistance to extinction of the conditioned avoidance response

Central to a fear interpretation of how avoidance responses are maintained in the absence of further CS-UCS pairings is the underlying assumption of an existing gradient of fear across the CS-UCS interval. Extrapolations based on this gradient lead to a number of differential predictions concerning the topography of avoidance responding during extinction. The present research was concerned with the differential effects of extinguishing separate components of the CS complex upon responding to the complete CS complex during extinction. In Phase 1 of the study, rats were classically conditioned to a three-component serial CS (S₁/S₂/S₃) followed by shock. Each subject was then given avoidance training in a one-way apparatus to a criterion of one successful avoidance. In Phase 2, subjects were divided into four groups, with three of the groups receiving nonreinforced exposure for 25 trials to one of the components of the serial CS (S₁, S₂, or S₃). The fourth group (S₀) was exposed for the same period of time to the apparatus cues. In Phase 3, the total stimulus complex was reintroduced in its original order, and animals were tested until extinction of the instrumental response was reached. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that a fear gradient exists in extinction and decreases in magnitude as the distance from the point of UCS onset increases.     

The control of contextual extinction effects during a fear-incubation procedure

The role of contextual (apparatus) cues upon baseline control groups in a fear-incubation procedure was examined. Using a suppression-of-licking measure, it was determined that infrahuman demonstrations of fear incubation have not clearly demonstrated an enhanced fear response (fear incubation) following brief unreinforced CS exposures. Adequate control for background apparatus exposures for the baseline-control group indicated that a facilitation of extinction for the no-CS-exposure group may, in fact, account for group differences. Results were interpreted within the context of existing theoretical models of fear extinction and incubation.     

Environmental influence on the writing of gifted high school girls

While the environment is recognized as having an influence on career choices of gifted adolescent girls, no attempt has been made to examine their writing from a historical perspective. Files in the Guidance Institute for the Talented (GIFTS), University of Wisconsin, Madison, contain essays on "Dominant forces that have directed my life" and "The future as I see it and my place in that future" written by most students who went through GIFTS. A comparison of essays by 21 gifted adolescent girls born in 1944 with 20 born in 1957 reflected changes in attitudes that occurred in the United States over that period. The danger of the environment influencing the thinking of gifted young women who have not established their own inner resources is stressed.     

Risk Factors for Community Violence Exposure in Adolescence

Community violence is recognized a significant public health problem. However, only a paucity of research has examined risk factors for community violence exposure across domains relevant to adolescents or using longitudinal data. This study examined youth aggressive behavior in relation to community violence exposure among a community epidemiologically defined sample of 582 (45% female) urban adolescents. Internalizing behaviors, deviant peer affiliation, and parental monitoring were examined as moderators of the association between aggressive behavior and exposure to community violence. For males with aggressive behavior problems and deviant peer affiliation or low parental monitoring, co-occurring anxiety symptoms protected against subsequent witnessing community violence. In contrast, males with aggressive behavior problems and co-occurring depressive symptoms were at increased risk for witnessing community violence. Implications of the findings for preventive interventions and future research are discussed.     

IMPROVING THE ACCURACY OF SELF-REPORTS OF ADHERENCE

Behavioral scientists who study socially important but difficult-to-measure behaviors often rely on self-reports. We evaluated the influence of three experimenter demands—demand for adherence, demand for accurate reports, and demand for accurate reports combined with a prompted recall strategy—on the accuracy of self-reports of adherence to a week-long prescribed regimen of twice-daily telephone calls. Self-reports of adherence were significantly more accurate in the accuracy demand/prompted recall group (p < .05). The analogue study should be replicated with other regimens and populations to determine the most effective strategies for enhancing the accuracy of self-reports.     

Narrative aspects of a doctor-patient encounter

In this essay I want to examine the ways that doctors communicate with their patients, in particular the stories that doctors tell their patients. I contend that the kinds of stories that physicians tell patients have a direct bearing on the nature of their relationship as a whole. Specifically, I shall argue that physicians who tell their patients the most complete stories possible about their illnesses, acknowledging uncertainties wherever they exist (to the extent that this is possible), show the greatest amount of respect for their patients as persons. This quest for completeness must be supplemented by an attempt on the part of the physician to explore the patient's understanding and beliefs so as to formulate not only a more complete narrative, but also to formulate one that better serves the needs of the patient.     

THE JUSTIFIED SCOUNDREL: THE STRUCTURAL GENESIS OF CORRUPTION

"It's more important to look honest than it is to get anything done."
Municipal Agency Commissioner in New York City; Interview, 1991