Environmental Crime Prosecution: Results of a National Survey

This Research in Brief discusses the results of a nationwide survey of local prosecutors in large jurisdictions (populations more than 250,000) and interviews with criminal justice and regulatory personnel in seven sites regarding environmental crime prosecution in their communities. Local environmental crime prosecutions increased dramatically between 1990 and the first half of 1992. Since this field has become more specialized, the researchers sought data on the processes and factors local prosecutors use when deciding if and how to prosecute environmental crimes. The survey found approximately half of the large jurisdiction prosecutors' offices surveyed operate special environmental prosecution units and more than half of the offices assign full-time prosecutors to environmental offenses and more than three-quarters assign part-time prosecutors to these cases.