Article by Kathleen F. Brickey
Although environmental crime is relatively new to the criminal-law lexicon, there is widespread public support for environmental criminal enforcement. Notwithstanding that support, much of the environmental legal community considers criminal enforcement of environmental standards unfair. This concern derives from the belief that environmental law has distinctive characteristics not found in other regulatory regimes. Because of a perceived lack of congruence between those distinctive features and core criminal-law concerns, environmental-law critiques maintain that vigorous enforcement of the environmental criminal provisions is inappropriate. Approaching these issues from a countervailing criminal-law perspective, this Article posits that concerns about the fairness of environmental criminal enforcement are greatly exaggerated. Because environmental-law critiques approach environmental crime primarily as an abstraction, they reflect a conception of environmental crime that is fundamentally at odds with the criminal regulatory framework. In consequence, their indiscriminate reliance on the distinctive features of environmental law fails to make a persuasive case for curtailing environmental criminal enforcement.
About the Author
Kathleen F. Brickey. James Carr Professor of Criminal Jurisprudence, Washington University, St. Louis.
Citation
71 Tul. L. Rev. 487 (1996)