When discussing how criminal intent relates to the enforcement of environmental laws first you must know what criminal intent means. USLEGAL.COM defines criminal intent as “the intent to do something wrong or forbidden by law.” (Criminal Intent Law & Legal Definition) To help one understand the meaning of intent, it is when a person make the conscious decision to break the law. (What is CRIMINAL INTENT) With environmental laws and regulations, it states that one must knowingly commit an environmental crime in order to prosecute as a criminal. As discussed in the week three lecture notes we learned that under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, if a person is knowingly transporting hazardous waste without a warrant than that person could be prosecuted criminally and face up to two years in prison and up to a $50,000 a day fine.( Week Three Lecture Notes)
The main when it comes to prosecuting criminally the person must have criminal intent, which in environmental law they replace criminal intent with “knowing”. Each act has this written into it and it with its own fines and punishment. A prosecutor could also take the convection a step further by saying the person knowingly endangered. By knowingly endangering means that you knew that committing the act was illegal and by doing so you are endangering the human community, wildlife, and environment at the same time.
When a prosecutor decides whether to pursue a cade either civilly or criminally it takes a turn on which one they decide. The main factor to a case that involves a criminal prosecution is the amount of harm caused to the environment and the intent of the person who committed the crime. (Environmental Crime Prosecution: Results of a National Survey) With all cr...
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...d.). NCJRS. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/envir.txt
Solow, S. P. (n.d.). Environmental Law. Environmental Law. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.americanbar.org/newsletter/publications/gp_solo_magazine_home/gp_solo_magazine_index/environmental.html
The Criminal Process in Environmental Regulation. (n.d.). UH Law. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/thester/courses/Environmental-Practicum-2014/syllabus/chap6.pdf
USDOJ: Environment and Natural Resources Division : Factors in Decisions on Criminal Prosecutions. (n.d.). USDOJ: Environment and Natural Resources Division : Factors in Decisions on Criminal Prosecutions. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.justice.gov/enrd/3058.htm
What is CRIMINAL INTENT?. (n.d.). The Law Dictionary. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://thelawdictionary.org/criminal-intent/
1) To inflict economic damage on those profiting from the destruction and exploitation of the natural environment;
We would like to begin by discussing the evolution of what will become known as the EBR. The first idea of having a statute that would provide people with environmental rights can be traced back to American law. The first of such laws was the Michigan Environmental Protection Act (MEPA) of 1970 which was seen as a “lean, mean, green, right to sue” (Lindgren, 2010). It was the work of the then University of Michigan law professor Joseph Sax (Emond, 1994). He had previously thought up the idea for an environmental rights act in his book, Defending the Environment (Emond, 1994). The idea was quickly taken up by environmentalists in Canada, especially by the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) (Emond, 1994). Soon...
Mr. Middleton, a journalist, compiled an article describing, in his opinion, the flaws of the Endangered Species Act. He then attempts to back his opinion with studied analyses, researched facts, and testimonies. To summarize Middleton’s (2011) perspective, “Rather than provide incentives for conservation and environmental stewardship, the Endangered Species Act punishes those whose property contains land that might be used as habitat by endangered and threatened species” (p. 79). This quote is broad and generalized yet draws in readers and forces Middleton to spend the rest of the article backing this statement with more logic based facts.
Laws are often changing. A law needs to keep up with the changing views and values of a society. Things like events and technology are just two examples of what may produce a law or a change to a law. A law would need to accommodate a technology to regulate it for safety and how it’s used. Events also need to be regulated by law for safety and if it was a terrible event (9/11), then a law, or laws, are needed to prevent it from happening again. Laws pertaining to the environment are always changing because human interaction with the environment is always changing, whether its pollution, hunting, or overusing resources, these things need to be constantly regulated. This paper describes how the Clean Air Act developed and changed. The
Cole, G. F., & Smith, C. E. (2007). The American System of Criminal Justice (11th Edition ed.). New York: Thomson Wadsworth.
Although the environment affects people’s lives, so do the laws and regulations. This crime is too broad and may result in more harm than good for the Canadian society and the Canadian Criminal Justice System.
...s And Challenges For Prosecutors." Crime, Law & Social Change 56.1 (2011): 71-89. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Max, N.E. 1969. Oil pollution and the law. Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.
Worrall, J. L. (2008). Reducing criminal opportunities through environmental manipulation. In Crime control in America: what works? (2nd ed., pp. 295-296). [Vitalsource for Kaplan University]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781269308267
Environmental Criminology focuses more on people given opportunity to commit crimes rather than why individuals commit crimes. This is seemingly a confusing theory to grip but there are many different theories that fall into the metaphorical folder of Environmental Criminology. Some of these theories that stood out to me personally are the Situational Crime Prevention Theory, Offender Search Theory, Broken Windows Theory, and James Q. Wilson’s, “Thinking About Crime.” I believe that these four theories/writings have a significant amount to do with crime and why criminals commit the crimes they do.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
Legal Information Institute. (2010, August 9). Retrieved February 17, 2012, from Cornell University Law School: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_law
This is known as intentional abuse. Many of the people guilty of this are people of the younger generation, who do cruel things to animals due to peer pressure from others.... ... middle of paper ... ...
a action for Greenpeace sometimes means that you have to break the law or at
Environmental law is a broad form of law developed to regulate how human activities affect the physical and biological environment (Doremus et al 2008, 2). Environmental law can be large scale or small scale, global or local; but it takes the cooperation of many different agencies to be successful. Overall, environmental law has contributed to a healthier environment in many ways. Since the beginning of environmental law and regulation, society has seen advancements in sanitation, pollution, air and water quality disease control and prevention, and ultimately in quality of life.