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.     

SCHOOL FAILURE AND DELINQUENCY Which Causes Which?

An extensive literature has developed on the relationship between school failure and adolescent misconduct. Almost all of this literature has assumed that school failure is causally prior to adolescent misconduct. but little systematic attention has been devoted to the critical issue of causal order. of misconduct is causally prior to school failure, most of the recent work on the school-delinquency linkage would have to be rejected. Given a workable definition of “delinquency” or “misconduct.” the causal order issue can be empirically assessed. Evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies provides at least tentative support for the proposition that school failure precedes misconduct in the causal process.     

MAKING WAR CRIMINAL

Turk's conflict theory of political criminality is used to account for the virtual cessation of international criminal law enforcement following the Nuremberg Tribunal and its revival through the establishment of The Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Turk's theory further helps to contextualize the little known contribution of Sheldon Glueck to the development of the Nuremberg Trials. Glueck helped overcome Soviet wishes to turn Nuremberg into a show trial and developed the organizational plan for the visual and witness evidence of the Holocaust that led to the most important convictions for crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg Trials. The contributions of Glueck and Turk provide an underappreciated foundation for the criminological study of war crimes and crimes against humanity.