Tag Archives: social work

Army drug users twice as likely to use synthetic marijuana as regular marijuana

Social work researchers from the University of Washington have found that among a group of active-duty Army personnel who use illicit drugs, the most abused substance is synthetic marijuana, which is harder to detect than other drugs through standard drug tests. (more…)

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The Death of the Death Penalty?

Texas leads the nation in executions. Minnesota has no death penalty. So two researchers—one from the University of Minnesota and one from the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin)—teamed up to find out something no one had ever looked at before: what the death penalty does for the murder victims’ families. They compared family survivors’ experiences in Texas with Minnesota, the latter one of 18 states with life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) as its “Ultimate Penal Sanction.”

The study used in-person interviews with victims’ families to examine the death penalty process and its long-term impact on the families. (more…)

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Asians Reluctant to Seek Help for Domestic Violence

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Asian-American victims of domestic violence rarely seek help from police or health care providers – “an alarming trend” among the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, says a Michigan State University researcher.

While cultural barriers can discourage victims from seeking help, there also is a lack of culturally sensitive services available to them, said Hyunkag Cho, assistant professor of social work.

That can be as simple as a local domestic violence hotline that cannot facilitate calls from Chinese- or Korean-speaking victims due to language barriers. And failing to get help the first time, Cho said, may prevent a victim from trying again. (more…)

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