This short-term, longitudinal interview study used an ecological framework to explore protective factors within the child, the caregiver, the caregiver-child relationship, and the community that might moderate relations between community violence exposure and subsequent internalizing and externalizing adjustment problems and the different patterns of protection they might confer. Participants included 101 pairs of African American female caregivers and one of their children (56% male, M = 11.15 yrs, SD = 1.28) living in high-violence areas of a mid-sized southeastern city. Child emotion regulation skill, felt acceptance from caregiver, observed quality of caregiver-child interaction, and caregiver regulation of emotion each were protective, but the pattern of protection differed across level of the child's ecology and form of adjustment. Implications for prevention are discussed.

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Police departments in the United States strive to schedule officers so that a number of benchmarks are met. The police administration is often asked to justify to local governing bodies the size of the police force. To assess the effects of force size and scheduling strategies on the ability to meet the benchmark goals, we develop a discrete-event simulation for the calls for service (CFS). Using actual call data from an urban police department in the United States, we fit distributions for call rates and service times for input to the simulation. The output of the model includes statistics related to the response delay, cross-sector calls, and officer utilization. The simulation model verifies intuitive notions about policing and reveals interesting properties in the system.

This article explores the ways in which one local church community responded to the devastating effects of parental incarceration. In their efforts to "reverse the jail trail", New Canaan International Church in Richmond, Virginia established a non-profit agency, New Jubilee to promote resilience in children and families from "at risk environments." Initiatives include a partnership with the Virginia Department of Corrections to offer video visitation to inmates and families. In addition, a mentor program is available for children between the ages of 4-18 who have a parent incarcerated in a state or federal institution.