The Brazilian administrative law enforcement process and its effects on environmental recidivism

Abstract

The Brazilian enforcement process is regarded as inefficient and weak concerning administrative sanctions appliance on environmental violations. Our main goal is to analyze the effect of processing status of administrative infraction perception of the defendant on the recidivism behavior of environmental offenders. We employ a unique dataset of infraction notices registered by IBAMA, for the years 2000 to 2010, at the individual level, within the Brazilian territory, through the Survival Analysis methodology. This paper contributes to the international literature on the rarely addressed subject of recidivism by providing new and strong evidence on the enforcement effects of the environmental law. The results shows that the delays in the legal process increase the risk of recidivism against the environment in Brazil.