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the lingering effects of puberty

Early puberty puts girls at risk for far more than unrelenting bra-snapping. Girls who mature earlier than their peers are more likely to hang out with older girls and boys, do worse in school, have a negative view of themselves, and experiment with drugs, alcohol, and sex.

There are also long-term consequences, according to a new study by Shannon Cavanaugh, Catherine Reigle-Crumb, and Robert Crosnoe (Social Psychology Quarterly, June 2007). Not only are early maturing girls more likely to fail a class in their first year of high school, but they’re less likely to graduate. Those that do graduate are more likely to have lower grades than their peers.

The physical transition of puberty coincides with an important social transition. The new physical changes that push girls to hang out with older kids puts them at risk for getting into more trouble, developing bad habits, and acquiring the label “troublemaker.” These early events can disrupt their path through high school and perhaps beyond, the authors say.

So parents’ desires to keep their kids young forever may be rational after all. J.S.

the kids are alright

Many commentators lament the future of today’s youth, partly in light of the “Stop Snitchin’” campaign and ambivalence toward police in general. Young people, especially young minority males, are thought to be not only anti-police but rejecting the rule of law outright.

To understand what’s causing this phenomenon, Patrick J. Carr, Laura Napo- litano, and Jessica Keating (Criminology, May 2007) interviewed 147 youth in three ethnically segregated Philadelphia neighborhoods. While they found many youth in these communities hold negative views of the police, at the same time the majority want increased policing to help control crime.

To make sense of this apparent paradox, the authors suggest we abandon the subcultural model that says youth mistrust police because they’ve been taught to do so. These youth have negative views of the police because of negative experiences with them. They don’t seek a state of lawlessness and anarchy, but rather an honest and fair police force that works within the community, which points to a hopeful future for community policing programs. J.W.

stop violent crime by punishing non-violent crime

In the 1990s New York City transformed from the place where tourists feared to tread to a family-friendly haven, as violent crime rates dropped by more than 75 percent.

Some argue it was due to what sociologists call Order-Maintenance Policing (OMP), or more popularly, “broken windows” policing. By heavily monitoring and prosecuting smaller “quality of life” crimes, the argument goes, the police send the message they’re paying attention and won’t hesitate to enforce the law. Thus, crime in general should decrease.

But according to Richard Rosenfeld, Robert Fornango, and Andres F. Rengifo (Criminology, May 2007), OMP may not have been the cause of New York’s pre- cipitous crime drop. While they found evidence to support the notion that OMP does reduce the violent crime rate, they concluded that in the case of New York City in the 1990s, OMP was responsible for at most 5 percent of the drop in the robbery rate and 12 percent of the drop in the homicide rate. And these effects were mostly confined to areas already the most highly monitored, such as predominantly African-American or working-class neighborhoods.

While we have yet to determine what caused New York’s dramatic trans- formation, we can safely say fixing broken windows plays only a small role in preventing violent crime. J.W.