In a longitudinal study of a national sample, more externalizing behavior problems were found among 222 children from never-married and 142 children from divorced families than among 840 children from married families. However, delinquent behavior reported when future mothers were single, childless adolescents prospectively predicted their future marital status and behavior problems among their offspring 14 years later. Maternal history of delinquent behavior accounted for much, but not all, of the relationship between marital status and children's externalizing behavior. Divorce and nonmarital childbirth do not occur at random, and these findings demonstrate that marital status is predicted by individual characteristics as well as by demographic factors. These findings highlight the importance of cautiously interpreting the much-discussed correlation between marital status and children's behavior problems. Much research has been conducted on the psychological adjustment of children who are born outside of marriage or whose parents divorce. Research has been stimulated by the dramatic increases in the rates of both divorce and nonmarital childbirth in the United States since the 1960s. Rates have stabilized and are slowly showing a downward trend, but about 40% of all children born to married parents still are predicted to experience their parents' divorce (U.S. Census Bureau, 1992), and about 25% of all children in the United States

Results suggest that many children who have been hospitalized for physical trauma may be experiencing clinically significant PTSD symptomatology and may benefit from psychological as well as medical intervention.

Preconceived notions about why youths assault staff at psychiatric hospitals do not appear to be validated by these data, which suggest a more complex picture.

Police officers encounter numerous stressors as part of their professional duties. Dissociation, the splitting off from awareness thoughts, feelings, or memories of stressful events, is one psychological defense associated with avoidance of emotionally painful material. In this study, dissociation, stressful or traumatic experiences, and psychological adjustment were measured in a sample of police officers. Stress was not directly associated with psychological adjustment, but increased stress did predict increased dissociation. Increased dissociation was associated with poorer adjustment. These data suggest that it is not the stressors themselves but officers' manner of coping with them that determine psychological adjustment.

Police receive extensive training due to the complexity and challenges of their work. Surprisingly, most police officers receive minimal training on how to understand and interact with adolescents. The current study included data from 1,030 law enforcement officers from 24 police departments evaluating perceived readiness to interact and work with adolescents in the community. We examined overall training needs, and then tested how experience in law enforcement and position or rank impacted self-identified training needs. Rank was associated with police officer perceptions of adolescents and related training needs. Compared with patrol officers, school resource officers indicated that they believed they had the skills needed to effectively work with adolescents [P = 0.001, odds ration (OR) = 2.5]. Beat or area patrol officers were significantly less likely than school resource officers to report feeling equipped to work with adolescents who have experienced trauma compared with new recruits (P < 0.001, OR = 0.3) and other non-patrol police officers (P = 0.001, OR = 0.6). School resource officers were significantly more likely to view adolescents as positive assets to the community (P = 0.003, OR = 2.8), and were significantly less likely to understand why Black adolescents or other adolescents of colour might mistrust police compared with both new recruits (P < 0.001, OR = 0.2) and patrol officers (P < 0.001, OR = 0.5). Overarching training needs are illuminated by these unique data.