Crime and Deviance - Environmental Crime / Green Crime Flashcards
Traditional Criminology - Definition of green crime
- Situ and Emmons (2000) define environmental crime as “an unauthorised act or omission that violates law”
- Wolf (2012) agrees the term eco/green/environmental crime was used to signal when laws had been broken
Examples of green crime:
- air pollutions, graffiti, dumping of waste, illegal wildlife trade, hunting of endangered species, logging,vandalism
Examples of regulation:
- Fishing quotas, climate change % targets, fly tipping, etc. (can be national, transnational)
Transgressive approach to green crime
White -
- Green crime is transgressive and should be defined as ‘any action that harms the physical environment and any creatures that live within it, even if no law has technically been broken’
- He advocates for an ‘environmental justice’ approach (e.g. destruction of Amazon isn’t against the law but is certainly harmful)
- Eco-centric view - Damage to the environment is damage to the other species as well, putting human race at risk in the future
- Anthropocentric view - Humans have the right to exploit the environment and other species for their own benefit.
South - Types of green crime
Primary crime:
- Direct result of the destruction and degradation of the planets resources. E.g.
- Crimes of air pollution
- Crimes of deforestation
- Crimes of species decline and animal rights
- Crimes of freshwater and marine pollution (sewage dumping)
Secondary crime
- Crimes that are a result of flouting existing laws and regulations. E.g.
- Dumping toxic waste in countries where it is legal
- Breach of health and safety rules
- Offloading products such as pharmaceuticals onto third world markets after they have been banned on safety grounds in the west
E.G. Walters 2008 - GM crops are not illegal, but do cause harm to the environment and us, potentially.
- Thornton and Beckwith (2004) thousands of people die from diseases as a direct result of air pollution yet there is no law to govern this.
South - enforcement of environmental laws
South - actions which are illegal under international law but not enforced effectively
- Walters 2007 - British nuclear industry dumps waste and causes pollution; nothing is done to prevent this.
- ‘Biopiracy’ - stripping natural resources away from indigenous people
Enforcement of laws is particularly difficult as everyone contributes, and so there is no direct perpetrator, and there is not always a clear victim.
Difficulty in policing green crime
1) Very few local or international laws governing the state of the environment.
2) International laws are difficult to construct
3) Laws that exist are shaped by powerful capitalists interests.
How is green crime a globalised crime?
Green crime is increasingly seen as a form of global crime for two reasons:
> Reason 1 - The planet is a single ecosystem.
> Reason 2 - Green crime is carried out by powerful interests, particularly transnational corporations
Green crime as a consequence of a manufactured risk society
Beck:
- Historically, risk has been natural (flood, famine, tornado) but more risk is manufactured and part of the global risk society.
- We have tried to manage natural risk (flood defences, tsunami warning systems etc).
- We now generate more risk by our industry and behaviour.
- There is inequality in who suffers from these increased risks - rich countries are better protected and less vulnerable to environmental changes.
Marxism on green crime
- Snider - business is reluctant to pass laws protecting nature unless forced to by environmental groups.
- Sutherland - env crime doesn’t carry same stigma (similar to corporate crime!)
- Companies have money to fight legal cases.
- Pearce - env crimes are “crimes of the powerful” - business seeks to maximise profit and minimise cost - e.g. dump waste in developing countries to avoid large bills for safe disposal in the UK
Evaluation of green criminology
- Green criminology recognises the growing importance of environmental issues and manufactured global risks
- It recognises the interdependence of humans, other species and the environment.
- However its focus on harm rather than criminality means green criminology is often accused of being engaged with subjective interpretation rather than objective scientific analysis and is therefore biased.
