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This paper offers readers a review of the literature on alcohol and illicit drug misuse in people with learning disabilities, focusing on six key areas. First, clarity is provided on the definition of ‘misuse’. Second, prevalence rates are examined along with the methodological difficulties involved in such studies, the authors arguing that prevalence rates are higher than current estimates. Third, the authors explore the relationship between the intra‐ and inter‐personal risk factors. Fourth, the nature of the substance misuse is explored, with a focus on offending behaviour. Fifth, a range of treatment modalities are described with a series of recommendations for more robust evidence‐based interventions. Last, the authors explore the gaps in policy that lead to a dearth in service provision as well the barriers which people with learning disabilities face on entering treatment services. The paper cites four innovative projects that address this population's needs in England, and illustrates how Northern Ireland has positioned the needs of this hidden population within the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland).

This article explores officer use of suspicion before informal police-citizen encounters as a method to further understand police officer decision-making. There is a body of research focused on officer decision-making before formal “stop and search” encounters, yet, while the more informal “stop and chat” encounters are ubiquitous, they are a comparatively under-researched part of policework.

The research takes an ethnographic approach to explore police decision-making. It used participant observation (800 h over 93 patrol shifts) of front-line first response officers from New Zealand (n = 45) and South Australia (n = 48). Field observations were complemented with informal discussion in the field and 27 semi-structured interviews.

It reveals that officers applied three situational “tests” to assess the circumstances or actions observed before initiating an informal encounter. Officers then weighed up whether the circumstances were harmful, contrary to law, or socially acceptable to determine the necessity of initiating a police-citizen encounter. This process is conceived as suspicioning: deciding whether circumstances appear prima facie suspicious, how an officer goes about collecting more information to corroborate suspicion to ultimately inform a course of action.

The findings present a new perspective to understanding how and why police officers decide to initiate encounters with members of the public. Moreover, as the first ethnographic cross-national research of officers from New Zealand and South Australia, it provides a rare comparative glimpse of Antipodean policing.

The purpose of the study is to provide empirical data on cases of drug‐related police corruption. It identifies and describes incidents in which police officers were arrested for criminal offenses associated with drug‐related corruption.

The study is a quantitative content analysis of news articles identified through the Google News search engine using 48 automated Google Alerts queries. Statistical analyses include classification trees to examine causal pathways between drugs and corruption.

Data were analyzed on 221 drug‐related arrest cases of officers employed by police agencies throughout the USA. Findings show that drug‐related corruption involves a wide range of criminal offenses, and that cocaine is the most prevalent drug. Older officers and those employed by large agencies are less likely than others to lose their jobs after a drug‐related arrest.

The study is limited by the quality of the available content in each case. The data are also limited to cases that involve an official arrest. Additionally, the data are the result of a filtering process that includes the exercise of media discretion as to types of news stories reported and the content devoted to particular news stories.

The data provide documentation of drug‐related corruption and the drug trade in 141 police agencies and the need for police executives to develop effective strategies to address it.

The study augments the few drug corruption studies published and is the only study known to describe drug‐related corruption at many police agencies across the USA.

This column is a selection of recent publication, reports, journals, databases and websites over the past few months. We hope it will be useful.

Kevin P. Brady is currently an associate professor in the Department of Leadership, Policy, Adult, and Higher Education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Previously, Dr. Brady was an assistant professor in the Department of Educational and Community Programs at the City University of New York-Queens College. His current research interests include legal and educational policy issues involving student discipline, including zero tolerance discipline policies and the viability of school–police partnerships. Additionally, Dr. Brady's recent scholarship has examined issues relating to student and teacher free speech and expression, special education law, school finance, and educational technology issues involving today's school leaders. Dr. Brady's peer-reviewed scholarship appears in a wide array of leading educational law, policy, and technology-based journals including, the Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, Children's Legal Rights Journal, Distance Education, Education and the Law, Education and Urban Society, Journal of Education Finance, Journal of Interactive Online Learning, Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Journal of School Leadership, International Journal of Educational Reform, NASSP Bulletin, Review of Research in Education, and West's Education Law Reporter.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived susceptibility to alcohol retailers' sales promotion strategies and young, female university students' intention to buy alcohol and attitude towards alcohol consumption.

Data were collected from a convenience sample of three universities in three OECD countries with high alcohol consumption per capita: Australia (n=305), Germany (n=323) and Wales (n=361). A self‐administered survey approach was used to collect data from female university students between the ages of 18 and 24 years in one university in each country. The four alcohol sales promotion strategies of interest were price reductions, quantity specials whereby the more you buy the less you pay on a pro rata basis, bulk purchasing of alcohol, and purchasing from more than one store to take advantage of low prices.

The study found that except for retailer price reductions, the association between Welsh university students' intentions to buy alcohol and their susceptibility to the remaining retailers' sales promotions was greater than that of university students in Australia and Germany, respectively. Significant differences between the countries were found in terms of the salience of perceived susceptibility to retail sales promotion strategies and their correlation with students' attitude towards alcohol consumption.

The paper's findings provide insights particularly for upstream, legislative strategic interventions to combat the issue of alcohol drinking of young female university students.

Herbal medicines are commonly‐used complementary therapies and are available through pharmacies, supermarkets, health food shops, the internet, or from complementary practitioners such as naturopaths.Although many people perceive that herbal products are not ‘medicines’, research shows that herbal medicines have the potential to interact with other medicines or produce side effects, in addition to potential therapeutic effects.

The purpose of this state-of-the-art review is to explore the empirical literature on federal intervention of police under 42 USC Section 14141.

A five-stage scoping review of the empirical literature related to 14141 was conducted through searches of scholarly databases and gray literature.

This scoping review revealed 21 empirical studies of 14141 published between 2002 and 2020 in criminal justice, criminology, legal and gray literature. Researchers employed various methodologies and designs to study 14141 reflecting the complexity of evaluating a multistage and multi-outcome federal intervention of police. The success of 14141 to reform police agencies is mixed. The empirical evidence suggests that application of this law is fraught with trade-offs and uncertainties including de-policing, increased crime and organizational difficulties in sustaining reform. Overall, more research would assist in understanding the efficacy of this federal mechanism of police accountability and reform.

This review is the first synthesis of the empirical literature on 14141. In consideration of the current national police crisis, findings help illuminate both what is known about federal intervention and areas for future research.

Does having alcoholic parents make you more susceptible to alcohol problems? Why do some people develop drink or drug problems while others in the same family do not? How much can genetic research tell us about why drink and drugs can affect people in so many different ways? With genetic research discovering increasing links with behaviour we invited two of the leading addiction and gene researchers to explain the science. Tamara Phillips and John Crabbe uncover the ever‐emerging world of genetic research and addiction theory.