disorders

A new study offers a rare glimpse of the psychiatric profiles of children most likely to commit crimes as young adults. http://louisfjfsheehan.blogspot.com It also suggests that childhood mental disorders substantially contribute to criminal behavior by adults.

Youngsters who exhibited emotional ailments, such as depression and anxiety disorders, along with substance abuse or other behavior problems had the greatest chance of getting arrested for serious and violent crimes by age 21, say psychologist William E. Copeland of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and his colleagues.

Prior studies of small groups of children, which typically didn't monitor an array of psychiatric disorders, had linked pervasive misbehavior, often diagnosed as conduct disorder, and substance abuse to later law-breaking. The new data indicate that kids who combine behavior problems with certain emotional maladies show an especially strong propensity to commit serious crimes as adults.

Another childhood mental condition linked to behavior problems, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, displayed only a weak connection to later criminal acts, Copeland's group reports in the November American Journal of Psychiatry.

Among mainly white, rural participants, 21 percent of female crime and 15 percent of male crime in young adulthood stemmed from childhood mental disorders, the investigators estimate. http://louisfjfsheehan.blogspot.com

"These results suggest that prevention or psychiatric management of substance use among youths with emotional mental disorders has special significance," comments psychologist Thomas Grisso of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

Copeland and his coworkers analyzed data from a study of 1,420 children living in 11 predominantly rural counties of North Carolina. Initial psychiatric assessments of the youngsters, based on home interviews with each child and his or her parents, occurred at age 9, 11, or 13. Annual follow-up interviews were conducted through age 16. The researchers consulted court records to identify any criminal offenses committed by each volunteer between ages 16 and 21.

Nearly one-third of the participants committed one or more crimes in young adulthood. These acts included minor offenses, such as shoplifting; moderate offenses, such as drug-related crimes; and serious offenses, such as sexual assault and armed robbery.

Overall, 51 percent of male offenders and 44 percent of female offenders had one or more childhood psychiatric disorders.

Childhood delinquency exerted no special influence on the tendency to break laws as an adult. Youths who had a criminal record in addition to a mental disorder committed no more offenses as adults than did those who had a mental disorder but no juvenile criminal record. http://louisfjfsheehan.blogspot.com

Combinations of childhood emotional and behavioral disorders showed a particularly strong relationship to serious forms of adult lawbreaking. For instance, 13 percent of depressed children who also abused drugs committed serious offenses as young adults.

Mental-health treatment targeted at such children may reduce crime rates, the researchers suggest. Fewer than half of children with multiple psychiatric disorders receive any mental-health care.

Copeland's team cautions that childhood mental disorders are only one of many influences on criminal behavior. More than half of the study participants who committed crimes as young adults displayed no psychiatric problems as children. And most participants with a childhood mental disorder did not get arrested as young adults.

ice

It’s the kind of news that caffeine-addled journalists latch onto and quickly blow out of proportion: The North Pole may be ice-free by the end of this summer. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us

Will we really see a Waterworld-like apocalypse by September? Not quite. As New York Times blogger, Andy Revkin, points out, no tenured ice researcher could make this kind of prediction with high confidence. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us There are far too many variables to pinpoint exactly how much melt a summer will bring. Furthermore, an “ice-free” North Pole, as so many headlines have shouted, is a bit misconstrued. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us

This summer there very well may be “open water,” a giant lake’s worth of melt that opens to Pacific or Atlantic water, says Andy Mahoney, a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “However, this is a very different thing than an ice-free Arctic,” he says. “The Arctic ice cover is constantly in motion. At any time, there could be a small patch of open water at the Pole,” he says. “Here, we’re talking about a much larger patch of open water that would be a consequence of last year’s big thaw.” Seeing open water at the North Pole by the end of this Summer would certainly be a historic milestone in global warming—a symbol of climate change for anyone who has ever believed in Santa (His home, now flooded.), as well as an event that would significantly change shipping in the Arctic. Open water at the North Pole is equivalent to the opening of a neutral passage for freight, natural gas, and oil to be carried without need for permission to pass through other countries’ territories.

While a great melt in the summer of 2008 is not assured, researchers are watching nervously because of last summer, which melted through an unprecedented amount of multi-year, perennial ice—the thick, resilient kind that survives at least one summer of melt. “We’re waiting to see what last year’s thaw did to enhance ice melt or slow down ice melt,” says Mahoney. “If one year’s ice loss leads to another, well, you can see where that goes. If it looks like the loss of ice last year didn’t lead to one this year,” he says, “we’ll probably be a bit more on the conservative side as to when the Arctic could be totally ice-free.”

Environmentalists are not waiting until next year to assess the damage caused by global warming. “The ice scientists are generally unnerved by the state of the North Pole,” says Kert Davies, head researcher at Greenpeace, and this is a concern coming from geological scientists who are usually not easily flustered. “The rate of change may in fact signal that we are beyond the point of no return for the Arctic,” says Davies. This sort of melt would be one final wake up call, says Davies. “I hope it triggers an even more vigorous debate in the election season.”

On the Canadian front, there is the dual concern of increased shipping and ice melt in their backyard, says Kevin Grandia, managing editor for the Vancouver-based DeSmogBlog, a global warming blog. “The North Pole melting doesn’t quite land on the doorstep of a Canadian,” says Grandia, “but it is getting closer to home.” For people to really get it, says Grandia, they need to see the change happening at their front door. Maybe climate change will finally hit home when Santa comes down our chimneys this year in a wet suit.

functionaries

MAY 13TH.—Cloudy and showery all day.

Last night my youngest son Thomas came in, furloughed (unsolicited) by his officers, who perceived his exhaustion. http://sheehan.myblogsite.com

The enemy disappeared in the night. We suffered most in the several engagements with him near the city. I suppose some sympathizer had furnished him with a copy of our photograph map of the fortifications and country in the vicinity.

But the joy of many, and chagrin of some at his escape so easily, was soon followed by the startling intelligence that a raid from Gen. Butler’s army had cut the Danville Road! All communication with the country from which provisions are derived is now completely at an end! And if supplies are withheld that long, this community, as well as the army, must be without food in ten days! Col. Northrop told me to-day that unless the railroads were retaken and repaired, he could not feed the troops ten days longer. And he blamed Gen. Lee for the loss of over 200,000 pounds of bacon at Beaver Dam. He says Gen. Lee ordered it there, instead of keeping it at Charlottesville or Gordonsville. Could Lee make such a blunder?

Most of the members of Congress, when not in session, hang about the door and hall of the War Department, eager for news, Mr. Hunter being the most prominent, if not the most anxious among them. But the wires are cut in all directions, and we must rely on couriers.

The wildest rumors float through the air. Every successive hour gives birth to some new tidings, and one must be near the Secretary’s table indeed to escape being misled by false reports.

For two days no dispatch has been received from Gen. Lee, although one hears of a dispatch just received from him at every corner of the streets. A courier arrived to-day from the vicinity of our army. He saw a gentleman who saw Gen. Lee’s son Robert yesterday, and was informed by him that our army was five miles nearer Fredericksburg, having driven the enemy farther down the river.

Our iron-clads—Virginia, Richmond, and Fredericksburg—I understood from Lieut. Minor, this morning, will not go out until in readiness to cope successfully with the enemy’s fleet of gun-boats and monitors. How long that will be he did not say. It may be to-day. And while I write (4½ P.M.) I can distinctly hear the roar of artillery down the river. It may be an engagement by land or by water, or by both; and it may be only the customary shelling of the woods by the enemy’s gun-boats. But it is very rapid sometimes.

A courier reports the raid on the Danville Road as not formidable. They are said, however, to have blown up the coal-pits. They cannot blow coal higher than our own extortionate people have done.

I directed my wife to lay out all the money about the house in provisions. She got a bushel of meal and five pounds of bacon for about $100. If we must endure another turn of the screw of famine, it is well to provide for it as well as possible. We cannot starve now, in a month; and by that time, Gens. Lee and Beauregard may come to our relief. Few others are looked to hopefully. http://sheehan.myblogsite.comThe functionaries here might have had a six-months’ supply, by wise and energetic measures.

The President has had the Secretary of War closeted with him nearly all day. It is too late now for the evacuation of Richmond, and a desperate defense will be made. If the city falls, the consequences will be ruinous to the present government. And how could any of its members escape? Only in disguise.http://sheehan.myblogsite.com This is the time to try the nerves of the President and his counselors!

Gen. Bragg is very distasteful to many officers of the army; and the croakers and politicians would almost be willing to see the government go to pieces, to get rid of the President and his cabinet. Some of the members of Congress are anxious to get away, and the Examiner twits them for their cowardice. They will stay, probably.