Law in Politics: Struggles over Property and Public Space on New York City's Lower East Side

This article examines politics on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, for evidence of law at the constitutive level. We see legal relations shaping grassroots struggles over public space and housing as forums, claims, and political positions. This view challenges instrumental conceptions of law still prominent in some social-scientific approaches.     

ILLEGAL ENTERPRISE: A THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION *

Illegal enterprise—defined as the sale of illegal goods and services to customers who know that the goods or services are illegal—has long been a central part of the American underworld, but it has received little attention as a separate criminological category. Although such activities are often relatively short term and small scale when compared with legal businesses, three major factors explain the cooperation that sometimes emerges among illegal entrepreneurs. The first factor is systematic corruption, which often permits police or politicians to bring order to illegal activities within a political subdivision. A second factor is overlapping partnerships by which entrepreneurs often launch and maintain illegal businesses. A third factor is the internal economic characteristics of illegal businesses, which shape the manner in which they operate. The paper explores the implications of each factor through historical examples and suggests hypotheses concerning the changing structure of illegal enterprises in American cities.     

Phenol: tissue distribution in a fatality

A case is reported where phenol, a disinfectant, was ingested and resulted in the death of a 40-year-old white female. Concentrations of phenol were determined in blood (130 mg/L), urine (47 mg/L), bile (187 mg/L), brain (486 mg/kg), kidney (331 mg/kg), muscle (204 mg/kg), liver (228 mg/kg), and stomach content (668 mg) and compared to other cases reported in the literature.     

Rapid isolation with Sep-Pak C18 cartridges and wide-bore capillary gas chromatography of some butyrophenones

A simple and rapid method for isolation of five butyrophenones with Sep-Pak C18 cartridges from human samples, and their wide-bore capillary gas chromatography (GC), are presented. The GC was made by both flame ionization and electron capture detections. The drugs contained in alkaline samples were directly applied to the cartridges and eluted with chloroform/isopropanol (9:1). The recoveries with use of the cartridges were excellent for most drugs in both urine and plasma samples. We can recommend the Sep-Pak C18 cartridges for isolation of butyrophenones because of simplicity and rapidity, and also wide-bore capillary GC because of high sensitivity and low decomposition of drugs during passage through the column.