Environmental Enforcement Agencies
Before discussing the police institutions involved in environmental law enforcement certain terms need to be defined. Policing is generally about space and territory. In other words police services have a prescribed geographic territory, which they defend from activities prescribe by law, as crimes. In this instance, environmental crime is an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law and is therefore subject to criminal prosecution and criminal sanctions. For the purpose here international policing institutions are those that operate across the globe at an international level, while regional police services have a number of police services from separate sovereign countries operating within a geographic area of the globe. National police services operate within the territorial boundaries of a sovereign country and state or provincial police services operate in delineated territorial boundaries of a nation. Local police services operate within a delineated geographic area, city or a state.
Enforcing environmental laws and regulations is an important ingredient in protecting the environment and reducing environmental harm. This is generally achieved by various environmental law enforcement agencies operating at an International, Regional, National, State and Local level. For instance, to some extent environmental law enforcement agencies operate only at an international level whereas others only operate at the local level. Furthermore, environmental law enforcement agencies utilise various enforcement methods to ensure compliance to environmental legislation. In some cases enforcement agencies rely on coercive powers to demand compliance to environmental laws, generally labelled “command and control” strategies, while others rely on conciliatory and educational strategies to persuade individuals, organisations and governments to comply with environmental laws and regulations. Moreover it has increased the need for cooperation between different policing institutions.
The Hazardous Materials Crime Unit of the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD).
Environmental law enforcement has become an area of interest due to the public’s concern over the state of the environment. Since the 1970s many governments have been faced with public outrage regarding the degradation of the environment; with a mobile public demanding that the environment is protected from possible harm, by industrial, individual or government activity. The reaction by governments to public concerns over the health of the environment has been to enact legislative instruments ostensibly to protect the environment from harm. In all area of human activity, the state of, protection of and integrity of the environment have to be considered before any activity takes place
