THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF VENGEANCE: A TEST OF BLACK'S MODEL*

The current research tests Black's (1990) model of vengeance through interviews with prison inmates. Drawing on a case‐control method, each respondent describes a matched pair of conflicts: the crime of vengeance and a similar nonviolent conflict from the same time period. The quantitative data are used to estimate the impact of conflict structure on conflict management. Conditional logistic regression models offer mixed support: relational distance and functional independence increase the odds of vengeance, but the remaining theoretical variables do not. The qualitative data are used to illustrate the quantitative patterns and unearth parallels between premodern and modern violence.     

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AS EXPERT WITNESSES: Their Use, Misuse, and Sometimes Abuse

Upon entering the legal realm, the expert witness must begin to define his or her role and establish a working relationship with the attorneys. The authors recommend that relationships between the social scientist and the attorneys be subject to clear and explicit agreements and that the role of the expert witness be defined so that the social scientist maintains control of any needed research. Potential expert witnesses should be aware of the unique research problems they may encounter and be prepared to deal with these obstacles. Throughout the research, the expert should be cognizant of the adversarial setting in which the results will be presented, and must carefully document and substantiate the research accordingly. Finally, the social scientist should be aware of the potential consequences of participating as an expert witness.     

PERCEPTUAL DETERRENCE AMONG ACTIVE RESIDENTIAL BURGLARS: A RESEARCH NOTE*

The research reported here is based on a comparison of active residential burglars and a matched control group regarding their willingness to commit a burglary at varying levels of certainty of arrest, severity of penalty, and anticipated reward. Initial analyses revealed that few controls were willing to offend regardless of risk, penalty, or reward and that offenders were not influenced by penalty on its own. Consequently, responses of the offenders only were further analyzed in relation to the impact of risk, penalty, and reward. The results of a logit analysis indicated that both risk of being caught and prospect of increased gain had a significant influence on the offenders' decision making.     

Managing Future Liability At Petroleum Impacted Sites Through Proactive Strategic Environmental Baselining

An important consideration of any commercial and industrial property acquisition or divestiture—whether it is a single gasoline station or a suite of oil refineries—is the extant environmental conditions of the property(s) at the time of the transaction. Property sellers and prospective buyers each consider and negotiate how any existing or future liability associated with extant environmental conditions will be handled. In spite of this forethought and the agreed contract terms, future litigation over unanticipated environmental contamination remains a real possibility. Often precipitating future litigation are disagreements surrounding whether “newly realized” contamination is old (pre-sale) or new (post-sale). As a result, environmental forensic investigations are often faced with the issue of “age-dating” this newly discovered contamination in order to determine whether it was released pre- or post-sale. Age-dating contamination can be an inherently difficult task to perform and technically defend. Technical arguments between experts can be short-circuited if there was an irrefutable understanding of the nature of extant contamination that had existed at the time of the sale. Conventional environmental due diligence investigations (Phase I and II site assessments) fall short of providing this understanding. In this paper, we discuss Strategic environmental baselining (SEB), a cost-effective and pro-active form of environmental due diligence that incorporates a key component of environmental forensics, that is, advanced chemical fingerprinting using modified EPA Methods that are tailored for hydrocarbon fingerprinting. Sufficient sampling and advanced chemical fingerprinting performed at the time of a transaction (or, at least, properly archived samples analyzed in the future as needed) provides the evidence that eliminates the need to “age-date” contamination at some future date. Advanced chemical fingerprinting data also provides detailed characteristics of the extant contamination and thereby, helps distinguish “old” from “new” contamination, regardless of alteration of the chemicals of concern by weathering. Armed with this information both buyers and/or sellers can protect themselves in the event of any future claim(s).     

Identifying Manufactured Gas Plant Tar in the Environment Using Chemical Fingerprinting

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that 3,000 to 5,000 manufactured gas plants (MGPs) were constructed in the United States (EPA, 2000). Companies located their MGPs near urban waterways due to the close proximity to cheap condensing liquid (water), improved site drainage, and easy access to delivery channels. However, these site selection criteria were shared by other industries, many of which generated PAHs or handled tar. Contemporary environmental forensic investigations must draw upon a detailed understanding of the relationship between MGP history and tar chemistry in order to differentiate between different types of MGP-derived tars and non-MGP impacts. This article describes the history of MGP operations in the U. S. and how chemical fingerprinting can aid in unraveling liability associated with MGP legacy sites.