Does school suspension affect subsequent youth non-violent antisocial behaviour? A longitudinal study of studnets in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, United States

School suspension has been not only associated with negative behaviours but also is predictive of future poor outcomes. The current study investigates (1) whether school suspension is a unique predictor of youth non-violent antisocial behaviour (NVAB) relative to other established predictors, and (2) whether the predictors of NVAB are similar in Australia and the United States (USA). The data analysed here draw on two statewide representative samples of Grade 7 and 9 students in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, USA, resurveyed at 12-month follow-up (N = 3,677, 99% retention). School suspension did not uniquely predict NVAB in the final model. The predictors of NVAB, similar across states, included previous student NVAB, current alcohol and tobacco use, poor family management, association with antisocial friends, and low commitment to school. An implication of the findings is that US evidence-based prevention programmes targeting the influences investigated here could be trialled in Australia.

Correlates of criminal victimisation among police cell detainees in Victoria, Australia

People with mental illness are more likely to be crime victims than others; however, little is known about the relationship between offending and victimisation among mentally ill offenders. This study investigated the rates and types of victimisation among people detained in police cells (N = 764), with and without histories of mental illness. Those with mental disorders were 1.56 times (95% CI = 1.11–2.17) more likely to be victims of violent crimes than other detainees. Some subgroups of people with mental disorders were not over-represented as victims, raising the possibility that they were less inclined to report certain types of crimes. Implications are discussed with reference to police practice.

The demise of Bicycle George : a life of crime

This short piece looks at the life of a murderer, George Blunderfield (alias Arthur Oldring), who was hanged in Melbourne in 1918. Melburnians, or visitors to the city, may have seen his image on the wall at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Blunderfield's life started out normally
enough, and then descended into horrific crime. His story includes bicycle racing, escape from an island prison, and then recruitment for service with the Australian Imperial Forces in wartime Victoria. In the last years of his life, Blunderfield wreaked havoc from the western to the eastern coasts of Australia. This in turn had a dramatic effect on his immediate family, which is also detailed here. This story draws on the archives at PROV as well as on State Records Office of Western Australia material, with help from Ms Jean
Bellamy, a distant relative of George Blunderfield.

Problem sexual behaviour in children: a review of the literature

   Although there is an under-acknowledgement of the issue in Australia there is a large body of international scholarship on juveniles who exhibit sexually violent or coercive behaviours toward other juveniles. Research undertaken in the United States and the United Kingdom emphasises options for clinical treatment, the logistics of coordinating multi agency response, and the causes and correlatives for coercive sexual behaviours in adolescents. Much of this literature has tended to focus on adolescents and there is an urgent need for increased studies on young children engaging in problem sexual behaviour.

   The smaller body of work published in Australia also favours adolescents rather than children with much of this work heavily influenced by international clinical studies. There are, however, a handful of reports based on Australian practitioner data that do focus on young children who engage in problem sexual behaviour. This literature surveys and evaluates the very limited number of existing therapeutic programs in Australia, and provides interview data with practitioners working with children exhibiting problem sexual behaviour. In the main, this research reinforces the findings of the internationa scholarship, both in terms of the contributing factors to problem sexual activity in children, but also in terms of the need for multi-faceted and contextually based cognitive behavioural therapeutic programs in response. More importantly, this burgeoning field of study indicates how far we have to go both in understanding the extent of the problem in Australia and in fashioning appropriate programs for prevention and intervention. Dr Joe Tucci is Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF), an organisation that has taken a lead in responding to childhood problem sexual behaviour. Tucci et al., (2006) claim an urgent need for investment in a dedicated research and response agenda (Staiger et al., 2005b). To effectively address this issue researchers and practitioners require comprehensive empirical data on problem sexual behaviour in children across all sectors of Australian society, including Indigenous communities.

More than a game : the impact of sport-based youth mentoring schemes on developing resilience toward violent extremism

This paper draws upon the findings of an evaluation of “More than a Game”, a sport-focused youth mentoring program in Melbourne, Australia that aimed to develop a community-based resilience model using team-based sports to address issues of identity, belonging, and cultural isolation amongst young Muslim men in order to counter forms of violent ex-tremism. In this essay we focus specifically on whether the intense embodied encounters and emotions experienced in team sports can help break down barriers of cultural and religious difference between young people and facilitate ex-periences of resilience, mutual respect, trust, social inclusion and belonging. Whilst the project findings are directly rel-evant to the domain of countering violent extremism, they also contribute to a growing body of literature which con-siders the relationship between team-based sport, cross-cultural engagement and the development of social resilience, inclusion and belonging in other domains of youth engagement and community-building.

Student and school factors associated with school suspension : A multilevel analysis of students in Victoria, Australia and Washington State, United States.

One of the common issues schools face is how best to handle challenging student behaviors such as violent behavior, antisocial behavior, bullying, school rule violations, and interrupting other students' learning. School suspension may be used to remove students engaging in challenging behaviors from the school for a period of time. However, the act of suspending students from school may worsen rather than improve their behavior. Research shows that suspensions predict a range of student outcomes, including crime, delinquency, and drug use. It is therefore crucial to understand the factors associated with the use of school suspension, particularly in sites with different policy approaches to problem behaviors. This paper draws on data from state-representative samples of 3,129 Grade 7 and 9 students in Washington State, United States and Victoria, Australia sampled in 2002. Multilevel modeling examined student and school level factors associated with student-reported school suspension. Results showed that both student (being male, previous student antisocial and violent behavior, rebelliousness, academic failure) and school (socioeconomic status of the school, aggregate measures of low school commitment) level factors were associated with school suspension and that the factors related to suspension were similar in the two states. The implications of the findings for effective school behavior management policy are that, rather than focusing only on the student, both student and school level factors need to be addressed to reduce the rates of school suspension.

The High Court on crime in 2014: Outcomes and jurisprudence

This article examines the Australian High Court decisions in 2014 which relate to criminal matters. This systematic analysis of all High Court judgments commenced in this Journal in 2010 and is now undertaken annually. The article explains the principles that derive from these cases and identifies jurisprudential themes from the decisions. It also sets outthe significance of the cases and the possible wider consequences of the decisions.

Returning a dislocated child's body to the scene of a crime

The 'Event' considered here is my 'abduction' as a child by my parents out of the Netherlands as part of the post war European migration to Australia in the 1950s. The migrant exists in many ways in-between cultures and this also holds for the migrant child. This event created a traumatic split in me as an eight year old boy. It was one that occurred to many children of migrants who left Europe post WWII. The migration in turn engaged with an unspoken racist complicity with Australia's 'White Australia Policy'. The 'white' Dutch were a good fit for this migration and thus the focus here applies to both 1950s Australia and the Netherlands. This article deals with how I expressed the two aspects of dislocation and racism made evident by this event through my art in a collaborative exhibition The Unwanted Land (see Figure 1). As this art is primarily visual, I have included a photo gallery of 28 images at the end of this text to reference and support this discussion.

The influence of mindfulness meditation on angry emotions and violent behavior on Thai technical college students

Introduction: Violence among technical college students is a significant issue in Thailand, South East Asia, and yet few interventions are available for use with this group. In this study the outcomes of a culturally appropriate intervention, mindfulness meditation (MM), on anger and violent behavior are reported. The MM intervention was delivered over three consecutive weeks to technical college students (n = 40) and the effects compared to a comparison group (n = 56) who attend classes as usual. Methods: Both the intervention and comparison group completed a series of validated self-report measures on aggressive and violent behavior perpetration and victimization on three occasions (pre-intervention, 1 month and 3 month post-intervention). Results: Program participants reported lower levels of anger expression at one month follow-up, but there were no observed group. ×. time interactions for self-reported violent behavior. Rates of victimization changed over time, with one interaction effect observed for reports of being threatened. Conclusions: MM may have the potential to improve emotional self-control, but is likely to only impact on violent behavior when this is anger mediated.