Samenvatting

Little empirical evidence exists about (rule violations of) perpetrators of environmental crime in the Netherlands and the effectiveness of government interventions through administrative and criminal law enforcement. The present article brings together insights from two recent empirical studies and describes the common threads that can be distilled from these two complementary studies regarding perpetrators, sanctions and recidivism. The results show that, among both companies and individuals, a small group of perpetrators is responsible for a majority of violations and offenses and that the criminal sanctions imposed differ between companies and individuals. The article discusses the findings on recidivism and effectiveness, draws conclusions and discusses future research.