The Sentencing/Punishment of Federal Environmental/Green Criminal Offenders, 2000–2013

ABSTRACT

While much has been written about the purpose of environmental sentencing, little research summarizes the actual sentencing of environmental offenders, forcing criminologists to generalize about environmental sentencing patterns. This study helps fill that gap by examining federal environmental sentences across 22 environmental statutes from 2000 through 2013. The analysis examines case distributions and mean sentences received by individuals (N = 420) and corporations (N = 161) across 337 criminal cases. Key findings: few cases go to trial; a handful of corporate cases significantly affect mean fine amounts; compared to earlier studies, fewer individual received sentences that involve incarceration, but those sentences are now longer.

Notes

¹ Data for Clean Air Act convictions appear suspect prior to 2010, and thus were excluded from this study while the USEPA updated its files. From 2000–2009, only 12 CAA convictions were recorded in the USEPA database, with zero (0) cases occurring in 6 of these 10 years (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2009). Among the 12 cases for which there were data, 8 cases involved individuals and 4 corporate defendants. Of the eight individual defendants, six pled and two were convicted at trial. For individual defendants, all individuals received a sentence to probation (mean = 31.5 months); seven received fines (mean = $ 453,682, with a high of $ 3,001,200 in one case); and two received a sentence to incarceration (mean = 11.5, with a high of 21 months). For corporations, three received probation (mean 18 months); and all four received fines/restitution (mean $ 3,325,300, with a high of $ 12,000,000 in one case). Additional searchers for missing data taken up during the revision of this paper discovered that USEPA had added 116 cases not previously identified by our searchers of USEPA data. Those missing cases obviously impact the description of the distribution of environmental crime cases across laws over time (Table 1) and perhaps means sentences in CAA cases.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael J. Lynch

MICHAEL J. LYNCH is Professor of Criminology and Associated Faculty in the Patel School of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida. His research focuses primarily on green criminology, environmental offending, and radical criminology. His recent books include: Defining Crime: A Critique of the Concept and its Implications (with P. B. Stretesky and M. A. Long, 2015); Corporate Crime, Corporate Violence. 3rd edition (2015); Exploring Green Criminology: Toward A Green Revolution in Criminology (with P. B. Stretesky, 2014), and Environmental Law, Crime and Justice (with R. G. Burns and P. B. Stretesky, 2014). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Division on Critical Criminology of the American Society of Criminology in 2011.