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Hooked in consistency? Economic and ecological factors in fisheries law enforcement
Thu, September 4, 4:00 to 5:15pm, Communications Building (CN), CN 3103Abstract
Law enforcement decisions, such as arrests or issuing tickets, can be influenced by factors beyond the actual infraction. This is especially true for “victimless crimes” like fisheries offenses, where nearly all reported infractions come from fisheries officers themselves due to the nature of their inspection-based work. Official data on fisheries infractions reveals more about enforcement behavior than the offenses, providing a unique opportunity to study law enforcement approaches.
This presentation explores how economic and ecological factors affect the consistency of fishery officers' decisions across species. This consistency is then related to how it aligns with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) goals of promoting economic growth and environmental protection. We created a measure of enforcement consistency based on 75,005 reported offenses under the Fisheries Act (2011-2021) in Canada. This measure, applied to 250 species, captures intervention severity, from warnings to charges. To test how economic factors influence enforcement consistency, we classified each species by its commercial status considering volume and value of commercial landings, but also value density per metric ton. We also used protection statuses from the Canadian framework for Species at Risk Protection to categorize species as special concern, threatened, endangered, or extinct. We hierarchically classified species to predict enforcement approaches and used enforcement measures to reclassify species groups, examining the alignment of these two typologies.
Our results indicates that enforcement consistency serves as a valuable tool for assessing the impact of natural resource management policies on law enforcement decisions. Understanding these patterns helps policymakers create strategies balancing economic growth with environmental protection for sustainable fishery management.