"If Someone Would Have Showed Me": Identifying Pivotal Points in Pathways to Crime and Incarceration Through Prisoner Self-Narratives.

Criminologists and correctional administrators are continuously interested in understanding criminal career trajectories, including desistance, particularly to further develop correctional programming. One program that seeks to promote successful reentry by triggering desistance for youth and adults is the IF Project, founded in 2008 in Washington State. A central component of the IF Project program requires participants to write narratives that ask them to reflect on their journey to crime and to think about what they would have needed to break away from their criminal career trajectory. This research reports on a content analysis of 171 of these writings by adult prisoners in Washington State. Results from the content analysis reveal distinct and overlapping themes for both men and women that highlight the identity change process. Research and policy implications are discussed.

A comparison of common swabbing materials for the recovery of organic and inorganic explosive residues.

The efficiency of solvent based extraction methods used to remove explosive residues from four different swab types was investigated. Known amounts of organic and inorganic residues were spiked onto a swab surface with acetonitrile or ethanol:water combined with ultrasonication or physical manipulation used to extract the residues from each swab. The efficiency of each procedure was then calculated using liquid chromatography-ultraviolet detection for organic residues and ion chromatography for inorganic residues. Results indicated that acetonitrile combined with physical agitation proved to be the most efficient method; returning analyte recoveries c. 95% for both alcohol based swabs and cotton balls. Inorganic residues were efficiently extracted using ethanol:water, while the use of acetonitrile followed by water significantly reduced the recovery of inorganic residues. Swab storage conditions were then investigated with results indicating decreased storage temperatures are required to retain the more volatile explosives.

A comparison of solvent extract cleanup procedures in the analysis of organic explosives.

The use of an organic solvent to extract explosive residues from hand swabs and postblast debris inevitably leads to the coextraction of unwanted materials, usually in far greater quantities than any explosive residue. In this study, the extraction efficiency of a number of solvent cleanup procedures including solid-phase extraction (SPE), adsorbent resins such as Chromosorb-104, and traditional materials such as silica and Florisil was calculated using a quantitative liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (LC-UV) detection procedure. The Oasis(®) HLB cartridge outperformed other cleanup procedures, with analyte recoveries approaching 95%, while the Amberlite XAD-7 procedure returned the lowest overall recoveries. The matrix rejection ability of each method was then determined using a simulated highly contaminated matrix, with the adsorbent resins showing a higher degree of matrix rejection, which is seen as a reduction in background noise in the UV chromatogram using 210 nm detection.