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Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime Redux: Charging Trends, Aggravating Factors, And Individual Outcome Data For 2005-2014, David M. Uhlmann
Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime Redux: Charging Trends, Aggravating Factors, And Individual Outcome Data For 2005-2014, David M. Uhlmann
Law & Economics Working Papers
In a 2014 article entitled “Prosecutorial Discretion and Environmental Crime,” I presented empirical data developed by student researchers participating in the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School. My 2014 article reported that 96 percent of defendants investigated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and charged with federal environmental crimes from 2005 through 2010 engaged in conduct that involved at least one of the aggravating factors identified in my previous scholarship, namely significant harm, deceptive or misleading conduct, operating outside the regulatory system, and repetitive violations. On that basis, I concluded that prosecutors charged violations that …
Deterrence And Damages: The Multiplier Principle And Its Alternatives, Richard Craswell
Deterrence And Damages: The Multiplier Principle And Its Alternatives, Richard Craswell
Michigan Law Review
One purpose of fines and damage awards is to deter harmful behavior. When enforcement is imperfect, however, so the probability that any given violation will be punished is less than 100%, the law's deterrent effect is usually thought to be reduced. Thus, it is often said that the ideal penalty (insofar as deterrence is concerned) equals the harm caused by the violation multiplied by one over the probability of punishment. For example, if a violation faces only a 25% (or one-in-four) chance of being punished, on this view the optimal penalty would be four times the harm caused by the …