Criminological Dimension of Environmental Crime

Abstract

Despite the increased public danger and the prevalence of criminal attacks on the environment, statistics show that since 2010 the officially registered environmental crime has a negative trend. The reasons for this are many, and they are, as shown by the study, to a greater extent subjective. The fact that the legislator classifies the majority of criminal violations of the environment (60%) as minor, difficulties in investigating the facts of criminal pollution of the environment, the minimum Statute of limitations of criminal liability lead to the fact that combating environmental crimes is not a priority in the activities of law enforcement agencies. As a result, the reduction in the number of registered environmental crimes occurs against the background of the growth of administrative offenses. This is facilitated by the lack of clear, regulatory features that allow to distinguish between these types of responsibility, which often leads to an excessively broad law enforcement discretion. According to the results of the study, the level of latency of criminal attacks on the environment is 30-60% on the facts of illegal extraction of biological resources and 70-90% on the facts of environmental pollution. Increased latency of crimes related to the negative impact on natural objects, contributes to the poor design of their compositions as material.