Empirical Construction of Sentencing Characteristics and Standardization of Influencing Factors for Environmental Pollution CrimesBased on 1 832 Judgments from 2014 to 2022

The determination of ecological environmental damage is an important procedure for the conviction and sentencing of environmental pollution crimes. Therefore, the complexity of administrative subordination and ecological legal protection of environmental pollution crimes leads to many differences in the application of penalties and sentencing standards. By looking back at the development achievements of China’s new era environmental governance over the past decade, this study selects 1832 criminal judgments for environmental pollution crimes in China from 2014 to 2022 after the revision of China’s Environmental Protection Law and the implementation of the Criminal Law Amendment (VIII) for empirical analysis, the research has found that with the increasing severity of environmental pollution crimes, the impact of past environmental administrative penalties on sentencing has gradually decreased, while the impact of ecological environmental damage on sentencing has gradually increased. In economically developed areas, the main culprit of a joint crime has a larger fine and a higher sentence, while in economically underdeveloped areas, this result is the opposite. The previous environmental administrative penalties can significantly improve the application rate of ecological environment damage restoration measures and probation. According to the principle of adapting criminal responsibility to punishment, the sentencing in environmental pollution cases should be standardized, achieving good governance through the integration of “judicial justice” and “ecological justice”, revealing the important role of ecological damage compensation, and improving the sentencing mechanism in environmental pollution cases.