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Stigma of Record Stays with Individual, Regardless of Crime Type, Conviction
Minorities, Women Less Likely to Receive Life-Saving Stroke Treatment
Teens Less Likely to Choose Sugary Beverages with Health Warning Labels
Reformed ‘Mean Girls’ Can Help Their Classmates
Stigma of Record Stays with Individual, Regardless of Crime Type, Conviction
According to a new qualitative study from the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern University, a criminal record can stay with an individual long after a case finishes, regardless of how minor the crime, whether charges were dismissed without a conviction and whether that person’s rehabilitation efforts were successful. This is particularly true in a digital age that makes such records much more accessible to potential employers, landlords and others.
The researchers, Charles Loeffler of Penn and Simone Ispa-Landa of Northwestern, published their findings in the August issue of the journal Criminology.
To better understand the experience of someone in today’s economy living with a criminal past, they went to a walk-in clinic working to help people wipe clean their records. Individuals there received information about the research, then had the chance to participate in a 30- to 45-minute interview while waiting to begin the expungement process. During the research period, summer 2012, Drs. Loeffler and Ispa-Landa spoke to 53 men and women ages 17 to 60 from a range of backgrounds.
“Recruiting participants at the clinic provided us considerable variation in the seriousness of what people had been arrested for and charged with, as well as what remedies they’d be eligible for. We focused on their subjective experiences,” said Dr. Loeffler, the Jerry Lee Assistant Professor of Criminology. “We wanted to understand how their experiences differed depending on the extent of their criminal record.”
The researchers gathered information on how criminal records intersected with factors such as housing, education and employment. They found individuals with a criminal record faced challenges in finding employment no matter the extent or seriousness of the record.
“You might predict that individuals with more substantial records would be subject to greater amounts of screening and stigma,” Dr. Loeffler said. “Instead, now you have a more uniform stigma, certainly in the employment sector, that adheres to people regardless of the extent of the criminal record.”
The researchers hypothesize the reason is twofold: One, employers can more easily find criminal records than ever before. Rather than needing to visit a physical location for this information, they can access it online. Second, larger national corporations do a significant amount of entry-level hiring, and it is likely the organizations with across-the-board guidelines that work against someone in this situation.
According to Dr. Loeffler, understanding how individuals experience living with a criminal record today can help inform contemporary policy conversations like Ban the Box and automatic expungement provisions designed to minimize collateral consequences of contact with the criminal justice system.
Minorities, Women Less Likely to Receive Life-Saving Stroke Treatment
Minorities and women suffering from a stroke may be less likely to receive the clot-busting treatment known as tissue plasminogen activator or tPA, according to a new study from Penn Medicine and other institutions published in the online issue of Neurology.
The elderly and those with milder stroke symptoms were also less likely to receive intravenous tPA, a drug which has been shown to significantly improve chances of cure from stroke disability, after arriving at a hospital.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study of over 61,000 ischemic stroke patients in the United States between 2003 and 2011 who arrived at a hospital within two hours after the start of symptoms and had no documented reasons that they could not receive the treatment.
Overall, they found that 25% of the eligible stroke patients did not receive the treatment. Treatment rates did, however, improve dramatically over time. From 2003 to 2004, 45% of eligible patients received treatment compared to 82% from 2010 to 2011.
After adjusting for hospital and patient factors, including stroke severity, women had 8% greater odds of not receiving treatment than men. African-Americans had 26% greater odds of not receiving treatment than whites, while those of other races had17% greater odds of not receiving treatment than whites.
Additional patient-specific factors associated with non-treatment included history of carotid stenosis, peripheral vascular disease, diabetes mellitus, heart attacks, presence of a prosthetic heart valve and not presenting to the hospital via EMS.
The researchers also found, as did previous reports, that people who were treated at hospitals certified as stroke centers were more likely to receive treatment than those at hospitals without the certification, with those at primary stroke centers having nearly twice the odds of receiving tPA. Patients not treated with tPA presented to hospitals that had a smaller number of beds, were less often teaching hospitals or Joint Commission–certified primary stroke centers, and had fewer annual ischemic stroke admissions, the authors found.
“To improve use of the clot-busting medication, patients and families should be educated about potential stroke symptoms and encouraged to call EMS if stroke is suspected. Continued development of systems of care for stroke should remain a high priority, as well,” Steven R. Messé, first author and associate professor in the division of vascular neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn, said. “Additional studies should also be taken to address the potential disparities in care for patients with ischemic stroke.”
Teens Less Likely to Choose Sugary Beverages with Health Warning Labels
Teens are more than 15% less likely to say they would purchase soft drinks or other sugary drinks that include health warning labels, according to a study led by researchers at Penn’s Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics in the Perelman School of Medicine. The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, could impact the outcome of health warning requirement policies under consideration in several states and cities.
The study is among the first to examine the way warning labels on sugary drinks affect teens, and builds on research published by the team earlier this year showing that parents were less likely to select sugary beverages for their kids when the drinks had labels warning about the dangers of added sugar, including increased risk of obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.
“The average teen in the United States consumes at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day, which could account for more than twice the recommended daily serving of sugar,” Christina Robert, lead author and assistant professor of medical ethics & health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine, said. “The rate of sugar consumption in the US is astounding and contributes significantly to obesity, type 2 diabetes and other dangerous and costly health conditions.”
The researchers used an online survey to determine beverage selections of more than 2,000 participants aged 12-18 and from diverse backgrounds. The beverages included either no label, or one of five warning labels. Among the labels, one featured calorie content and the other four displayed a variation of warning text indicating that consumption of sugary drinks contributes to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.
Results showed that 77% of participants who did not see a label said they would select a sugary drink in a hypothetical choice task. Depending on the specific phrasing of the warning labels, participants were between 8% and 16% less likely to select sugary beverages when health warning labels were present.
The researchers also found warning labels contributed to teenagers’ understanding of the potentially negative health effects of regularly consuming sugary beverages. In addition, 62% of participants said they would support a warning label policy for sugary drinks.
Reformed ‘Mean Girls’ Can Help Their Classmates
A study conducted by researchers at CHOP has demonstrated the possibility for former “mean girls” to turn their social influence into a positive force among their peers. Middle school “mean girls” are known for relational aggression such as gossip, rumors and manipulation of social relationships, but they also can be socially influential and popular, according to Stephen Leff, co-director of the Violence Prevention Initiative (VPI) at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and professor of clinical psychology in pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Leff led a team that has demonstrated it is possible to turn that influence into a positive force for pro-social behavior not only among relationally aggressive girls themselves, but among their classmates and teachers.
The researchers studied the classroom impact of their behavioral intervention, called Friend to Friend (F2F), that is targeted to ethnic minority girls in third through fifth grades in urban schools, after a randomized clinical trial of the program. F2F is a pull-out small group intervention for relational aggression and bullying behaviors that uses age-appropriate cartoons, videos and role-playing activities to engage with girls and help them slow down, act like “social detectives” in their peer interactions and think in moments when they might otherwise react aggressively. It encourages girls to give others the benefit of the doubt and consider their choices in social settings.
They compared classroom climate in classes where a subgroup of girls had participated in F2F with control classrooms where the eligible subgroup of girls at risk for relational aggression received an educationally-based group intervention focused on homework and study skills.
“In the past, the girls might have been excluding people, and that’s how they used their influence,” said study co-author Brooke Paskewich, program manager for VPI. “If they demonstrate how they use their influence to include people and encourage people to do positive things instead of negative ones, they hold on to popularity and influence while doing something positive.”
In classes of girls who received the F2F intervention, boys and girls uninvolved in the small-group sessions received higher peer ratings in friendship and nice behaviors and improved closeness with their teachers than those in the classes whose relationally aggressive girls received a homework intervention. Boys in the F2F classes also received lower scores on negative behaviors including rumor spreading, exclusion, and fighting, and lower teacher conflict scores.
The team reported these results in the journal Behavior Modification.
Drs. Leff and Paskewich recommend that, even for aggressive girls who are not enrolled in a formal program like F2F, teachers and parents can help build pro-social skills by looking for positive teachable moments and reinforcing social behaviors when they catch kids behaving well.
“We know that kids who are aggressive, especially aggressive girls, have tons of potential and a lot of resilience,” Dr. Leff said. “When they do something right, give them positive attention and reinforce it. When appropriate, look for opportunities for leadership, such as mentoring younger girls, or talking about when they resolved a situation in a positive way.”
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