Environmental crime can be broadly defined as illegal acts

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

, which directly harm
the environment

Natural environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

. International bodies such as the G8

G8

The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...

, Interpol

Interpol

Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...

, EU, UN Environment Programme and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have recognised the following environmental crimes:

• Illegal wildlife trade in endangered species
  Endangered species
  An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...
  
   in contravention to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES);
• Smuggling of Ozone depleting substances (ODS) in contravention to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer;
• Dumping and illicit trade in hazardous waste
  Hazardous waste
  A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...
  
   in contravention of the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Other Wastes and their Disposal
  Basel Convention
  The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known simply as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of...
  
  ;
• Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
  Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
  Illegal fishing takes place where vessels operate in violation of the laws of a fishery. This can apply to fisheries that are under the jurisdiction of a coastal state or to high seas fisheries regulated by regional organisations....
  
   in contravention to controls imposed by various regional fisheries management organisations;
• Illegal logging
  Illegal logging
  Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission or from a protected area; the cutting of protected species; or the...
  
   and the associated trade in stolen timber in violation of national laws.

These crimes are liable for prosecution. Interpol

Interpol

Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...

 facilitates international police cooperation and assists its member countries in the effective enforcement of national and international environmental laws and treaties. Interpol began fighting environmental crime in 1992.

United States

Abandoned or little used areas are common dumping places in America -especially railroads. Over $10 million dollars a year are used to remove illegal dumping from polluting towns and the environment. A small organization, CSXT Police Environment Crimes Unit, has been started to stop railroad dumping specifically. They have prosecuted over 1000 cases, however they lost over $90,000 in the first 90 days of investigating.

Ever since the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Criminal Enforcement was founded in 1982, there has been a steady increase in prosecuted environmental crimes. This includes the prosecution of companies that have illegally dumped or caused oil spills.

In the past, small fines were given to environmental criminals. However, today the results can lead to fines of over $18 million and 21 years in prison.

Enforcement

The effective enforcement of environmental laws is vital to any protection regimes that are designed to protect the environment. In the early days of environmental legislation, violations carried largely insignificant civil fines and penalties. Initial environmental laws and regulations had little or no deterrent effect on corporations, individuals, or governments to comply with environmental laws. Indeed a major source of failure of US environmental protection legislation was the civil character of federal enforcement actions. Their chief sanction was fines, which many corporations took in stride as a cost of doing business. Environmental criminal law covers narrower ground. Its core consists of the criminal provisions of eight federal statutes passed mainly in the 1970s and amended in the last two decades.

In many cases, particularly corporations found it more cost-effective to continue to pollute more than the law allowed and simply pay any associate fines if indeed the corporation was actually found and convicted of violating environmental laws or regulations. Perversely, corporations actually had a disincentive to comply with environmental laws or regulations as compliance generally raised their operational costs which meant that many corporations obeying the environmental laws, whether out of a sense of legal duty or public obligation, were disadvantaged and lost a competitive edge and consequently suffered in the marketplace to competitors who disregarded environmental laws and regulations. As a result of weak environmental legislation and continued adverse public opinion regarding the management of the environment, many governments established various environmental enforcement regimes that dramatically increased the legal powers of environmental investigators. The inclusion of criminal sanctions, significant increases in fines coupled with possible imprisonment of corporate officers changed the face of environmental law enforcement. For example, between 1983 and 1990 the US Department of Justice secured $57,358,404.00 in criminal penalties and obtained sentences of imprisonment for 55% of defendants charged with environmental offences.

Enforcing environmental laws and regulations is an important ingredient in protecting the environment and reducing environmental harm. This is generally achieved by various environmental law enforcement agencies operating at an International, Regional, National, State and Local level. For instance, to some extent environmental law enforcement agencies operate only at an international level whereas others only operate at the local level. Furthermore, environmental law enforcement agencies utilise various enforcement methods to ensure compliance to environmental legislation. In some cases enforcement agencies rely on coercive powers to demand compliance to environmental laws, generally labelled “command and control” strategies, while others rely on conciliatory and educational strategies to persuade individuals, organisations and governments to comply with environmental laws and regulations. Moreover it has increased the need for cooperation between different policing institutions.
Environmental law enforcement agencies and police services do not operate in a vacuum; the legislative instruments that political systems implement govern their activities and responsibilities within society. However, ostensibly it is the legislative instruments implemented by governments that determine many of the strategies utilised by police services in protecting the environment. Generally these International, Regional, National and State legislative instruments are designed to ensure industries, individuals, and governments comply with the various environmental obligations embedded in national statutes and laws. There are also international legal instruments and treaties that also affect the way that sovereign states deal with environmental issues .

Environmental criminology

Environmental criminology

Environmental criminology

Environmental criminology focuses on criminal patterns within particular built environments and analyzes the impacts of these external variables on people's cognitive behavior...

 examines the notions of crimes, offences and injurious behaviours against the environment and starts to examine the role that societies including corporations, governments and communities play in generating environmental harms. Criminology, is now starting to recognise the finite nature of the earth’s resources and how law enforcement agencies and the judiciary measure harm to the environment and attribute sanctions to the offenders (White 2003)

See also

• Environmental issue
  Environmental issue
  Environmental issues are negative aspects of human activity on the biophysical environment. Environmentalism, a social and environmental movement that started in the 1960s, addresses environmental issues through advocacy, education and activism.-Types:...
  
  
• Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System
• Wildlife smuggling
  Wildlife smuggling
  Wildlife smuggling or trafficking involves the illegal gathering, transportation and distribution or animals, and their derivatives. This can be done either internationally or domestically...
  
  
• Ecotax
  Ecotax
  Ecotax refers to taxes intended to promote ecologically sustainable activities via economic incentives. Such a policy can complement or avert the need for regulatory approaches. Often, an ecotax policy proposal may attempt to maintain overall tax revenue by proportionately reducing other taxes...
  
  
• Environmental Crime Prevention Program
  Environmental Crime Prevention Program
  The Environmental Crime Prevention Program was an organization which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War. It was founded by Italian lawyer and self-styled security consultant Mario Scaramella along with his partner Filippo Marino in Naples,...
  
  
• Environmental Investigation Agency
  Environmental Investigation Agency
  The Environmental Investigation Agency is an NGO founded in 1984 by Dave Currey, Jennifer Lonsdale and Allan Thornton, three environmental activists in the United Kingdom. Its stated goal is to investigate and expose crimes against wildlife and the environment...
  
  
• List of environmental lawsuits
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
  Scottish Environment Protection Agency
  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is Scotland’s environmental regulator. Its main role is to protect and improve Scotland's environment...
  
  
• Environment Agency
  Environment Agency
  The Environment Agency is a British non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government that serves England and Wales.-Purpose:...
  
  

External links

• Interpol - environmental crime page
• Environmental Crime-Havocscope Black Markets -Statistics and data on environmental crime
• Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System
• Australian Institute of Criminology
• Monitoring and Enforcement of Climate Policy