underenforce

From under- +‎ enforce.

• Audio (US):

  (file)

underenforce (third-person singular simple present underenforces, present participle underenforcing, simple past and past participle underenforced)

1. (transitive) To enforce inadequately.
   • 2009 September 24, “How to Stop Contaminating the Water”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     But effective laws, already on the books, are pitifully underenforced by the Environmental Protection Agency.

   • 2020 June 12, Kate Waldock and Luigi Zingales, “Should we defund the police?”, in Capitalisn't‎^[2]:

     I don’t know if it’s underenforcing or overenforcing the law. But, at least in the data, we see that Black officers are less likely to make a drug arrest than the others.

• overenforce

• underenforcement