Deterring Gang-Involved Gun Violence: Measuring the Impact of Boston’s Operation Ceasefire on Street Gang Behavior

Objectives

The relatively weak quasi-experimental evaluation design of the original Boston Operation Ceasefire left some uncertainty about the size of the program’s effect on Boston gang violence in the 1990s and did not provide any direct evidence that Boston gangs subjected to the Ceasefire intervention actually changed their offending behaviors. Given the policy influence of the Boston Ceasefire experience, a closer examination of the intervention’s direct effects on street gang violence is needed.

Methods

A more rigorous quasi-experimental evaluation of a reconstituted Boston Ceasefire program used propensity score matching techniques to develop matched treatment gangs and comparison gangs. Growth-curve regression models were then used to estimate the impact of Ceasefire on gun violence trends for the treatment gangs relative to comparisons gangs.

Results

This quasi-experimental evaluation revealed that total shootings involving Boston gangs subjected to the Operation Ceasefire treatment were reduced by a statistically-significant 31 % when compared to total shootings involving matched comparison Boston gangs. Supplementary analyses found that the timing of gun violence reductions for treatment gangs followed the application of the Ceasefire treatment.

Conclusions

This evaluation provides some much needed evidence on street gang behavioral change that was lacking in the original Ceasefire evaluation. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that jurisdictions should adopt focused deterrence strategies to control street gang violence problems.     

When national symbols divide: the case of pan-Catalanism and the Països Catalans

Shared symbols are an essential element in nationalist mobilisation. National symbols provide perhaps the strongest, clearest statement of national identity and are socially constructed. The effectiveness of these symbols will determine the success or failure of a political and cultural project. The effectiveness of cultural and political symbols can be seen through examination of the project of pan-Catalanism, the Països Catalans (the Catalan-speaking countries). This political project is rather unusual in the nationalist literature in being unable to advance beyond an embryonic stage. While cultural affinity can be determined within the Catalan-speaking territories, a wider claim to pan-Catalan political identity has foundered. This article argues that the absence of a shared attachment to national symbols in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearics and other Catalan-speaking areas, provides the principal explanation why successful nation building has not been achieved.     

The Search for “Fred”: An Unusual Vertical Burial Case,

Police witness intelligence stated a murdered adult male “Fred” had been vertically buried in wooded hilly terrain 30 years ago in the Midlands, U.K. Conventional search methods were unsuccessful; therefore, the police requested a geophysical investigation to be undertaken to determine whether “Fred” could be detected. A multiphased geophysical approach was conducted, using bulk ground conductivity and metal detectors, then follow‐up magnetics and ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey profiles on electromagnetic (EM) anomalous areas. A tight grid pattern was used to account for the reduced target size. Relatively high‐resolution EM and GPR techniques were determined optimal for this terrain and sandy soil. Geophysical anomalies were identified and the most promising intrusively investigated, and this was found to be a large boulder and tree roots. Study implications suggest careful multiphase geophysical surveys are best practice and give confidence in cold case searches. This study yielded a no‐body result, effectively saving police time and costs from further investigations.     

Organic impurity profiling of fentanyl samples associated with recent clandestine laboratory methods

Nearly a decade ago, fentanyl reappeared in the United States illicit drug market. In the years since, overdose deaths have continued to rise as well as the amount of fentanyl seized by law enforcement agencies. Research surrounding fentanyl production has been beneficial to regulatory actions and understanding illicit fentanyl production. In 2017, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began collecting seized fentanyl samples from throughout the United States to track purity, adulteration trends, and synthetic impurity profiles for intelligence purposes. The appearance of a specific organic impurity, phenethyl-4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (phenethyl-4-ANPP) indicates a shift in fentanyl production from the traditional Siegfried and Janssen routes to the Gupta-patent route. Through a collaboration between the DEA and the US Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center (DEVCOM CBC), the synthesis of fentanyl was investigated via six synthetic routes, and the impurity profiles were compared to those of seized samples. The synthetic impurity phenethyl-4-ANPP was reliably observed in the Gupta-patent route published in 2013, and its structure was confirmed through isolation and structure elucidation. Organic impurity profiling results for illicit fentanyl samples seized in late 2021 have indicated yet another change in processing with the appearance of the impurity ethyl-4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine (ethyl-4-ANPP). Through altering reagents traditionally used in the Gupta-patent route, the formation of this impurity was determined to occur through a modification of the route as originally described in the Gupta patent.     

Ballistic impact of hollow-point ammunition on porcine bone

Identifying failure mechanisms in skeletal tissue allows a deeper understanding of the effects of specific projectile impacts on bone. While ballistic trauma in flat bones is largely researched, knowledge of how long bones react to gunshot impacts is limited in the literature. The impacts of deforming ammunition appear to produce higher levels of fragmentation; however, these have not been studied in depth. This study compares the damage to femora bone by HP 0.357 and 9 mm projectiles constructed with both full and semi-metal jackets. Impact experiments were undertaken on a single-stage light gas gun involving the use of a high-speed video camera and full reconstruction of the bones to ascertain fracture patterns occurring in the femora. Higher degrees of fragmentation are likened to the presence of semi-jacketed HP projectiles than jacketed HP projectiles. The observations of external facing beveled edges are believed to be associated with the increased separation of the jacket and lead core of projectiles. Additionally, experimentation has shown that the amount of kinetic energy lost postimpact is likely related to the presence or the absence of a metal jacket on an HP projectile. The observed data, therefore, suggest that the composition, rather than the configuration, of a projectile affects the type and extent of the damage.