Rapid separation and characterization of cocaine and cocaine cutting agents by differential mobility spectrometry-mass spectrometry

Forensic drug laboratories are inundated with cases requiring time-consuming GC- or LC-based chromatographic separations of submitted samples. High-throughput analytical methods would be of great practical utility within forensic drug analysis. Recently developed ion-mobility-based separation methods combined with mass spectrometry can often be used without chromatography, suppress chemical interferents of similar mass, and operate in seconds. We have evaluated differential mobility spectrometry-mass spectrometry (DMS-MS) for performance on adulterated cocaine mixtures. The DMS interface is only a few centimeters in length, operates in seconds, and can be adapted to any MS system using atmospheric pressure ionization. Drug cutting agents, typical targets such as cocaine, and drug metabolites are rapidly separated by the DMS ion prefilter. Tests demonstrated characterization of complex mixtures, such as isolation of levamisole, an adulterant with alarming side effects, from a 13-component mixture. DMS-MS holds great potential for the analysis of drug samples submitted for forensic analysis.     

THE CENTRAL PLACE OF RACE IN CRIME AND JUSTICE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY'S 2011 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

In the United States and elsewhere, racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal justice are relatively ubiquitous. Yet the meaning of such disparities is not well understood. To address this concern, periodically there have been calls for research that takes into account the broader structural context of the racially and ethnically inequitable crime and justice patterns. However, a comprehensive approach to understanding such inequality is seldom applied in research. In this article, I review findings from a program of research on crime across race–ethnic neighborhoods that I have undertaken with Lauren J. Krivo and other colleagues to provide, and assess, such a framework. The starting point of our approach is that ethnoracial inequality in neighborhood crime is an outgrowth of a racialized social structure maintained largely through racial residential segregation. As anticipated, the findings illustrate the value added from research that embeds its assessment of crime and justice within an understanding of structured societal inequality. From these results, I call for placing race and ethnicity at the center of the study of crime and justice.     

Considering the Effectiveness of Drug Treatment behind Bars: Findings from the South Carolina RSAT Evaluation

Through funding from the national Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program, the South Carolina Department of Corrections implemented the Correctional Recovery Academy in the Turbeville Medium Security Institution to treat drug‐dependent offenders. The program features a cognitive–behavioral change modality delivered in a modified therapeutic community to first time, non‐violent, drug‐dependent, youthful male offenders. A quasi‐experimental design was employed to specify impact as indicated by recidivism, relapse, and parole revocation. While analyses revealed no statistically significant difference between treatment and control group participants on these outcome measures, implications regarding the efficacy of the treatment modality are ambiguous as implementation failure masked determination of program effects. Drug testing frequency after release, however, was found to be a significant factor precluding failure, contrary to the conventional view that increased testing identifies greater use.     

适用监视居住措施的合法性与公正性

监视居住属于非羁押性强制措施,对于被监视居住的犯罪嫌疑人、被告人只能限制人身自由,而不能剥夺人身自由。监视居住有其独特的功能和价值,但必须严格遵守适用的条件和程序。违法采用监视居住措施,可能使监视居住成为变相的羁押措施,并为刑讯逼供的实施提供便利。为此,检察机关应当强化对于监视居住决定与执行的法律监督。     

居住小区道路交通安全建设初探

随着我国经济社会的发展,新建居住小区快速增加,伴随着机动车保有量的增长,居住小区道路交通日趋复杂,道路交通安全问题日益突出,已逐渐成为影响群众居住水平和生活质量的一大障碍。要切实改善这种状况,必须重视居住小区交通安全建设、完善法规和管理体系、科学规划小区道路、加强交通管理,并做好安全宣传工作。     

State anti‐labor legislation: Texas — A case study

Previous research on the Great Migration in the USA has focused on the economic outcomes of black migrants in the North. In comparison, the economic outcomes of black migrants in the West, particularly during the second wave of the Great Migration that occurred between 1940 and 1970, have not been fully explored in the literature. This article analyzes the occupational mobility of southern-born black male migrants in the West in the 1950s relative to various subgroups residing in the West: western-born white and black males and southern-born white males. Regression results from the 1% 1950 and the 1960 census microdata samples indicate that unlike in the North in the 1910s where southern-born blacks were not as upwardly mobile as northern-born blacks during the first wave of the Great Migration, there was no difference between western-born blacks and southern-born blacks in their probability of getting employed in a particular occupational class in the West in the 1950s, during the second wave of the Great Migration. However, compared to white males, although the majority of black males remained employed in lower-blue-collar occupations (as laborers and service workers), southern-born blacks were successful at increasing their representation in upper-blue-collar occupations (into Crafts/Sales).     

Backjumps: writing,watching, erasing train graffiti

This article deals with mobile semiotics. First and foremost, it discusses mobility as a semiotic device. The analysis engages with backjumps, a genre of train graffiti that draws inventively on various forms of movement. The term backjump refers to any fairly elaborate graffiti piece painted on trains in traffic, notably during the trains’ extended stops at terminal stations. The examples focus on the Stockholm metro, where a rigorous anti-graffiti policy has been firmly in place: graffiti is quickly cleaned off trains and a range of strategies is implemented to keep graffiti writing under wraps. By slyly inserting graffiti into the metro system, the mobility-driven backjump practice allows graffiti writers to temporarily subvert this semiotic regime. Furthermore, the forms of semiotic mobility at play are not limited to the movement of the trains. As the present study shows, mobile backjumps are entangled in other patterns of mobility, which jointly underwrite a number of interlinked semiotic processes.     

居住空间的意象蕴含——《傲慢与偏见》和《简·爱》的相关语境

本文对《傲慢与偏见》和《简.爱》中的居住空间描写进行分析,通过两部作品在这方面的同异,来考察二者在以居住空间为代表的环境描写方面如何作用于对人物性格的塑造以及对作品情节发展所起到的暗示性作用,从而理解两位作家在创作上的高超手法。     

Remembering the children: decolonizing community-based restorative justice for Indian Residential Schools

This article argues for community-based justice to confront the atrocities of residential schools in Canada. After considering the strengths of community-based restorative justice (CBRJ) in relation to state-sponsored transitional justice responses, I examine a case study of the Remembering the Children Society (RCS), an Indigenous church partnership, that has worked to commemorate children who lost their lives at the Red Deer Industrial School. The RCS engages in a decolonizing form of CBRJ by placing primacy on Indigenous cultures through (1) feasts and ceremonies, (2) freeing the spirits of children who died, (3) the centrality of elders, and (4) Aboriginal spirituality and world views on ‘working together’. The centrality of cultures contributes to decolonization through (1) cultural resistance in the face of assimilation, (2) the healing power of cultural resurgence, (3) the development of mutually honoring partnerships, and (4) the telling of decolonizing truths. In conclusion, I consider the broader impacts of the RCS in helping transform official narratives about residential schools.     

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: ADVANCING THE HIGHLY MOBILE STUDENT POPULATION TOWARD HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION

Varied curricula among public school districts within the same state often result in localized core courses and high school graduation requirements. This inconsistency makes it difficult for highly mobile students–who make frequent non‐promotional school transfers during the school year–to obtain full or partial credit for successfully completed coursework, hindering progress toward graduation and increasing dropout rates. While student mobility permeates all communities, it is particularly devastating to some of the most vulnerable children in our society, including homeless children, foster youth, children from low‐income and single‐parent households, migrant students, youth in juvenile correctional facilities, and children of military families. Current federal legislation addresses only some of these groups, leaving many students underserved by the education system. This Note advocates for states to adopt legislation that specifically requires a standardized credit‐recognition system, allowing schools to award full and partial credit for coursework completed elsewhere within the state. Specifically, it addresses the importance of keeping highly mobile students in their schools of origin, when it is in their best interest. It further focuses on the need for state and local policies to require school districts to award and accept full and partial credit for coursework completed in another in‐state school district.