Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Through its history, the juvenile justice system has evolved from a treatment and rehabilitative orientation to one that has increasingly become more punitive. We are seeing more juveniles being transferred into the adult criminal justice system. Of the juveniles remaining in the juvenile justice system, almost 110,000 were in a residential placement facility in 2003, and during the same year, 62 percent of juveniles leaving a residential facility for the community were reported having at least one prior placement with 23 percent reporting a prior placement for a crime different from the current offense. Reentry back into the community is an essential step in the juvenile justice system. This paper will use data collected from juveniles that have been placed in residential facilities by the Philadelphia Family Courts and will examine factors that contribute to recidivism. The following research questions are being explored: (1) Does attachment, whether to the family or school, predict recidivism among juvenile delinquents? And (2) Does attachment differentially affect juveniles in different levels of risk classifications?

Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Background and Aims: Past studies have revealed that paternal sensitivity is only moderately related to the child's security of attachment to his/her father. Other types of father's behaviors may be more influential in determining the child's security of attachment. The objective of this study was to better understand the origins of father-child attachment by comparing fathers’ and mothers’ representations of their attachment relationship with their child.
Method: The quality of mother-child and father-child attachment relationship to their two-year-old child was evaluated using the Attachment Q. sort (Waters & Deane, 1985). Based on the conceptual content areas suggested by Waters and Deane (1985), the attachment data were analyzed using the procedure proposed by Strayer et al. (1995). The attachment dimensions considered were: proximity-exploration balance, differential responsiveness, positive affect, sociability, independence, and social perceptiveness.
Key Results: Cluster analyses revealed four distinct attachment profiles for fathers as well as for mothers: two secure and two insecure. ANOVAs were used to compare these profiles. The attachment scale that is the most significant at discriminating father-child profiles - independence – was found to be the least significant at discriminating mother-child profiles (² = 66% for fathers and ² = 34% for mothers). The attachment scale that is the most significant at discriminating mother-child profiles - the proximity-exploration balance - has only a moderate impact in discriminating the fathers’ profiles (² = 54% for fathers and ² = 69% for mothers).
Conclusion: Fathers are more likely to value the child’s independency and seem to be more concerned with the exploration side of the proximity-exploration balance than mothers are. In agreement with several other studies (Grossmann et al., 1998, 1999, 2002; Volling & Belsky, 1992), we can hypothesize that the father-child attachment bond emerges mainly in playful contexts involving active exploration. The father-child attachment system thus seems to be closely related to the child’s exploratory system.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime is proposed to be general in its explanation of all crimes and to have applicability cross-culturally, though the latter has seldom been tested. Their theory focuses attention on early childhood socialization but it does not specify adequately how features of socialization operate to foster self-control. This study examines Gottfredson and Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime cross-culturally and in relation to parental and family attachments. A self-report survey was administered to a sample of 298 Puerto Rican High School students who attend either a private or a public school in two comparable municipalities of Puerto Rico. This research examines how various measures of attachment relate self-control and how both attachment and self-control predicts analogous behavior (e.g. cheating, substance use) and shoplifting. Attachments and self-control relate to analogous behaviors and crime. Self-Control, however, did not mediate all the effect of attachment to analogous behaviors and shoplifting. The strength of the relationships was diminished but not eliminated. Directions for future research and policy implications are also discussed here.

Publication Type: Proceeding

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Recent research has demonstrated that attachments and enmities to salient social groupings in society shape political understanding and behavior on domestic issues. In this paper, I argue that beliefs about those groups to which individuals feel loyalty or hostility also structure their attitudes in the realm of foreign policy. The effects of group loyalties differ from the effects of partisanship because long-standing group attachments lead to sizable, but stable differences in opinion on war. As I demonstrate, these differences are resistant to alternations in political messages and persist even in the face of massive changes within the political environment, such as the attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Group attachments therefore give individuals the agency to form their own opinions independent of political leadership. In these ways, group-based differences provide a bedrock structure to public opinion.
In this paper, I draw primarily on data from World War II – a time when internal ethnic divisions were a highly visible part of the social sphere in the United States. However, though the power of groups was especially strong in World War II, group-based differences can provide structure to citizens’ understanding of foreign policy more generally. Thus, to demonstrate the generality of the group-based perspective, I look to other cases involving group-based thinking – namely a recent controversy involving foreign trade – to demonstrate that feelings toward domestic groups can structure opinion on foreign policy more generally.