Juvenile sex offenders charged with their first sexual offense were compared with recidivist juvenile sex offenders who had been charged with more than one sexual offense on a number of factors related to sexual offending. Participants were 70 male juvenile sex offenders, aged 13-21 years who were awaiting court disposition. Negative family history, negative family characteristics, school and learning problems, social skill deficits, deviant sexual experiences, deviant sexual fantasies, and cognitive distortions were assessed for their direct and mediating roles in recidivism. Path analysis indicated that poor social skills, learning problems, and deviant sexual experiences were causally related to recidivism of sexual offending. Poor social skills were directly related to recidivism, whereas cognitive distortions and deviant sexual fantasies mediated the role of learning problems and deviant sexual experiences. There was a significant association between deviant sexual experience and learning problems. The findings support the role of cognitive distortions and deviant sexual fantasies in recidivist sexual offending for this sample. The causal role identified for poor social skills and learning problems in recidivism for sexual offending has implications for treatment and therefore deserves further attention.

The Belief Diversity Scale (BDS) was administered to Australian, Canadian, Egyptian, and South African participants of different religious backgrounds. The BDS is a 33-item, six subscale instrument that is designed to quantitatively measure Middle Eastern extremist ideologies on risk areas that are reported in the literature. Results demonstrated the reliability and validity of the BDS, thus suggesting that the BDS could be used as an objective tool to measure Middle Eastern extremist ideologies. Results also supported the hypothesis of prevalence of Middle Eastern extremist ideologies around different parts of the world.

In the decade 1989 - 99 there have been significant changes in the patterns of substance use in the Australian community. Juvenile offenders have been a sentinel population of these emerging trends. The social and personal costs associated with adolescent substance use, especially where it leads to increased criminal offending requires urgent attention. This study was a replication of the 1989 and 1994 surveys of young people in detention in New South Wales, Australia. The 300 voluntary participants from nine detention centres had a similar demographic profile to participants of the previous surveys. They were predominantly male (90%) with a mean age of 16.5 years and an over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples. The patterns of lifetime alcohol and tobacco use were stable over the decade, with particular increases in amphetamine, opioid and cocaine use since 1994. The more concerning pattern of at least weekly substance use revealed significant increases in cannabis, opioid and cocaine use since 1994, but a significant decrease in the frequent use of alcohol. This study also reports on high levels of negative health and psychosocial consequences of substance use, including overdose, among this group. High levels of self-reported depression and suicidal behaviours, family and gender issues are also discussed. Encouragingly, there was a relatively high level of self-recognized treatment need for substance use and mental health problems among the sample. This highlights further the growing need for the development and dissemination of novel interventions that harness this willingness and actively engage, motivate and maintain these young people in accessible, appropriate and effective interventions.

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