The phrase "almost enforced" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a situation where something is not fully mandatory but is very close to being so.
Example: "The new policy is almost enforced, with only a few exceptions allowed for special cases."
Alternatives: "nearly mandatory" or "practically required".
The timekeeping rule is almost never enforced.
For its part, Gynob is focusing on highlighting the hypocrisy of having a law that is almost never enforced.
Journalists in China are nominally required to seek approval before conducting interviews, but in practice, the rule is almost never enforced.
Sodomy laws were almost never enforced, but their very existence legitimatized a culture of homophobia, and as long as Bowers was still on the books gay-rights arguments would be stymied in the courts.
Re "Why Arizona Drew a Line," by Kris W. Kobach (Op-Ed, April 29), defending the Arizona immigration law: While it is true that federal law requires noncitizens to carry immigration documents, this is almost never enforced or prosecuted.
In Canada, possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana or seeds carries a 12-month prison sentence and a $1,000 fine, but the law is almost never enforced, making marijuana all but legal.
Technically, sodomy was punishable by fierce laws which, however, were almost never enforced: in the whole of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, there were only six indictments and one conviction, and that was for sex with a five-year-old boy.
In the past, rape was defined as penetration only, and anything short of that fell under the category of criminal assault on a woman with "intent to outrage her modesty", an offence that carried a light penalty and was almost never enforced.
These laws are almost never enforced against ordinary people.
As Johnson and other authors have noted, those laws, as well as vagrancy and other minor offenses, were almost exclusively enforced against blacks.
