Automobile theft: Estimating the size of the criminal population

Animal abundance estimation procedures including a new method of Zelterman are applied in the criminological context of auto theft in the Australian Capital Territory. Using goodness-of-fit statistics and comparing the estimates with known clearance rates, it is estimated that during 1987 about 39% of offenders were charged with at least one count of auto theft. The results also indicate the extent of overrepresentation of juveniles in court statistics compared with their relative participation rate in auto theft.     

Detection of S-methylfenitrothion, aminofenitrothion, aminofenitroxon and acetylaminofenitroxon in the urine of a fenitrothion intoxication case

A 23-year-old male attempted suicide by ingesting approximately 50 ml of 5% fenitrothion emulsion, and vomited soon afterwards. He was admitted to a hospital about 3 h after ingestion. He recovered and was discharged from hospital 3 days after admission. The serum cholinesterase activity (normal range: 175-440 I.U.) was only 29 at 3 h, 32 at 1 day, 59 at 2 days and 75 at 3 days after ingestion. Fenitrothion and its metabolites in the body fluids were extracted by an Extrelut column extraction method, detected by a gas chromatograph equipped with either a hydrogen flame ionization detector or a flame photometric detector, and confirmed by a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer. Fenitrothion concentration in the blood was 169.5 ng/g at 3 h after ingestion. The half life of blood fenitrothion concentration was found to be about 4.5 h. Fenitrothion metabolites, 3-methyl-4-nitrophenol, aminofenitrothion, aminofenitroxon, acetylaminofenitroxon and S-methylfenitrothion, were detected in the urine samples. All of them except S-methylfenitrothion were detected in the urine samples collected up to 62 h after ingestion. It would appear therefore that fenitrothion poisoning can be determined by detection and analysis of the metabolites in urine even if fenitrothion has not been detected in the blood.     

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.     

The prospects for prepaid long-term care: the Arizona Medicaid experiment

Arizona is adding long-term care to its prepaid, capitated alternative to Medicaid. This article discusses the potential for this major cost-control experiment. Experience suggests that those able to quality for long-term care will fare better than the poor did in the previous system. However, limiting eligibility will be the primary means of controlling costs; significant price competition is not likely to develop. The bidding process will serve more to transfer risk to contract providers than to improve program efficiency. Potential cost savings will be more than offset by an increased identification of need.     

Neoclassical Difficulties: Tort Deterrence for Latent Injuries*

Economists often claim that the tort system leads firms to provide consumers and workers with the socially optimal level of safety. Moreover, in the case of work-related hazards, employers are alleged to have another source of incentives to take precautions. If wages are sensitive to job-related risks, employers should spend money to reduce such risks when, by doing so, they can save more in wage costs than the costs of the precautions taken. Whatever their merits in other settings, in the case of latent injuries such as workplace exposure to asbestos neither tort nor market are likely to provide an optimal level of safety; indeed, they have failed to do so in the examples we discuss. We find that the introduction of a long delay between the exposure to a hazard and the onset of symptoms introduces a variety of empirical complications that overwhelm the assumptions on which the neoclassical model rests. Our conclusion is thus that comparisons between tort and alternative systems of deterrence/compensation should start from an empirical assessment of how the tort system actually works (and doesn't work), rather than beginning with misleading theoretical claims about the system's optimality.