Memo: ENRD Guidance on Restitution, Community Service, and Other Sentencing Measures

January 2009 Memo from Ronald J. Tenpas, Assistant Attorney General: Guidance on Restitution, Community Service, and Other Sentencing Measures Imposed in Environmental Crimes Cases

Introduction:

Environmental crimes can result in widespread detrimental effects upon the environment and threaten the health and safety of both individuals and entire communities. Those circumstances cannot be remedied by the traditional criminal sanctions of imprisonment or fines. However, in some instances it may be possible to address these effects through other forms of sentencing, including restitution or community service.

Restitution focuses upon reimbursing defined losses sustained by specifically identifiable victims of particular crimes, while community service often is aimed at circumstances, such as general environmental degradation, in which individual victims cannot be identified. Community service and other forms of sentencing (such as remedial orders and required publication of information on a crime) may provide additional deterrence against criminal behavior, encourage better compliance with environmental laws, and advance important priorities such as pollution prevention, promoting more efficient environmental technologies and improved corporate management practices.

This guidance sets out the policies and practices of the Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ECS) with respect to restitution, community service, and other elements of a criminal sanction other than fines and imprisonment. It is intended to guide ECS prosecutors and to assist other federal prosecutors in environmental criminal cases to craft sentences which include these measures when appropriate. This guidance is designed to ensure that these sentencing measures are effective, fairly applied, have a sound legal basis and are consistent with Department and Division policies.

This guidance focuses primarily upon corporations and other organizational defendants, although it also may apply to individual defendants in appropriate circumstances.  Regardless of the nature of the offender, in all cases, restitution, community service, and the other elements of sentencing considered and discussed should be applied in addition to and not in lieu of the fundamental criminal sanctions of fines and terms of incarceration.

This guidance is broken down into three parts: (1) a discussion of the legal authorities for restitution and community service; (2) guidance on the application of restitution and community service obligations in environmental criminal cases; and (3) a discussion of other possible sentencing provisions.