Environmental crime in a welfare state – a case study on the prosecution of environmental crimes in Finland 2015-2020

This article aims to analyse environmental crime charges in Finland from 2015 through 2020. At first glance, it would seem as though Finland has a lot of environmental crime compared to several other western countries, despite the strong role of environmental administration in environmental law enforcement. However, most Finnish environmental crimes, hunting crimes and offenders are private individuals.

These crimes are not classified as environmental crimes in several other countries. The majority of other environmental crimes that are committed are related to business. However, private individuals have a major role in these crimes, as also significant amounts of littering is considered an environmental crime. This study expands the previous literature on environmental crimes to a new geographic area and provides information on the role of economic motives in environmental crimes.