An epidemic of illicit fentanyl deaths in Cook County, Illinois: September 2005 through April 2007

Between September 2005 and April 2007, 350 fentanyl intoxication deaths were investigated and certified by the Cook County Medical Examiners Office. Investigations revealed that the majority of these fatalities were by intravenous injection of a white powder followed by a rapid collapse. The fentanyl was clandestinely produced in a lab in Toluca, Mexico and sold by the Mickey Cobra street gang. The term "Drop Dead" was coined for this "tainted heroin." Postmortem samples were screened by ELISA and confirmed by standard GC-MS methods. Fentanyl fatalities peaked at 47 per month in May and June 2006. Fifty-two percent were single fentanyl intoxications, with the remainder accompanied by either cocaine, morphine from heroin, or alcohol. This epidemic stressed the limited resources of the toxicology laboratory and autopsy service of the Medical Examiners Office. The clandestine lab was terminated, distributing gang members and leaders arrested, and the epidemic ceased in April 2007.     

Project Safe Neighborhoods and Violent Crime Trends in US Cities: Assessing Violent Crime Impact

Since the mid-1990s, a number of initiatives intended to address gang, gun and drug-related violence have arisen and demonstrated promise in reducing levels of violent crime. These initiatives have employed some combination of focused deterrence and problem-solving processes. These strategies formed the basis for Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a national program implemented by the Department of Justice and coordinated by US Attorneys’ Offices. This paper is an initial attempt to assess the potential impact of the nationally implemented PSN initiative through an analysis of violent crime trends in all US cities with a population of 100,000 or above. While a number of site specific studies exist examining the potential impact of locally implemented PSN programs, to date no national-level study has examined whether PSN may have had an impact on violent crime trends. Cities included in the current study are distinguished on the basis of whether they were considered a treatment city by the PSN task force and by the level of implementation dosage of the PSN program. This allowed a comparison of 82 treatment cities and 170 non-treatment cities as well as a variable of dosage level. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (HGLM) were developed that controlled for other factors that may have affected the level of violent crime across the sample of cities. The results suggested that PSN treatment cities in higher dosage contexts experienced statistically significant, though modest, declines in violent crime whereas non-target cities and low dosage contexts experienced no significant changes in violent crime during the same period. The limitations of this initial analysis are noted but the evidence seems to suggest that the multi-agency, focused deterrence, problem solving approach holds promise for reducing levels of violent crime. At a minimum, these findings call for continued programmatic experimentation with data-driven, highly focused, deterrence-based violence reduction strategies.     

The ideological bases and functions of contemporary juvenile law reform: The New York State experience

This paper reviews dominant crime control ideologies and relates these ideological assumptions to juvenile justice reform. Using New York State as a case study, the ideological basis of recent juvenile justice legislation is then reviewed through analysis of legislative debates. The debates indicate that the legal reforms represent the ascendance of conservative crime control ideology. The paper then examines the functions and effects of crime control ideology. It is argued that liberal and conservative crime control ideologies are part of a more general institutionalized thought structure dominant in American society. Key elements of this institutionalized thought structure include an emphasis on individualism, formal equality, and rationality. The net effect of the legal reforms, however, appears to be an increase in substantive inequality in the form of extended state control over poor, urban, minority youths. The paper concludes by suggesting that these ideologies function to offer apparent responses to the problem of crime in society without threatening existing distributions of power and wealth.     

Improving the effectiveness of fluorescence for the detection of semen stains on fabrics

The paper describes the use of the Polilight, a light source based on a xenon arc lamp, to exploit the fluorescence properties of semen as an aid to searching fabrics for stains in sexual assault cases. The broad excitation spectrum of semen allows the fluorescence to be generated at a range of wavelengths. This permits the excitation and emission conditions to be selected that minimize interference from background fluorescence of the fabric and thereby optimizes the contrast between the fabric and the stain. A common method for the observation of fluorescence is the use of colored plastic goggles or filters. The paper shows that the detection of fluorescence from semen stains is significantly enhanced using appropriate interference filters.