Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Criminal Law

2021

Mitchell Hamline School of Law

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Toxic Crusaders: Exploring The History Of The Criminal Enforcement Of The Toxic Substances Control Act, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell Jan 2021

The Toxic Crusaders: Exploring The History Of The Criminal Enforcement Of The Toxic Substances Control Act, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

The criminal prosecution of defendants who violated federal laws governing chemical substances has been ongoing for roughly four decades. Yet we continue to have a poor understanding of how federal prosecutors use the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to charge and prosecute environmental criminals. Through content analysis of all the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) criminal prosecution case summaries from 1983 to 2019, we analyze all TSCA-focused prosecutions for two purposes. First, to gain a better historical understanding of how federal prosecutors have used TSCA as a prosecutorial tool. Second, to understand outcomes of those prosecutions. Results show that 38% …