green crime

Question 1

Defining green crime

Answer 1

Wolf - green crime originally used in traditional criminology to describe actions that break laws protecting the environment
HOWEVER - this didnt take into account the same harmful environmental actions legal and illegal in some countries
(Taylor?) - different laws in different countries

Lynch and Stretesky - transgressive approach - widens the definition to include harm

White - also adopts this approach and re-defined environmental crime to be any human action that causes environmental harm whether or not it is illegal
Crime are all actions that harm the physical environment, including the people, animals and plants that live within it

This definition is known as an environmental justice approach

Question 2

who commits green crime and who are the victims

Answer 2

who commits green crime

individuals - eg littering

private business - eg sea pollution

states and governments - Smetana - military is the largest institutional polluter - warfare plays major role eg unexploded bombs, toxic chemicals and nuclear arms race

organised crime - Wolf - relationship between organised criminals and green crime established for a long time - Interpol - large proportion of environmental crime is committed by organised global criminal networks as seen as low risk and high profit

Who are victims of crime

Wolf - widespread social inequalities in the distribution of harm and risk to victims caused by environmental destruction

Potter - working class, the poor and minority ethnic groups are most likely to be a victim of green crime in both the developed and developing world - environmental racism

White - people living in the developing world face greater risk of land, air and water pollution

Question 3

Two sociological views of harm

Answer 3

White

anthropocentric view of harm
- adopted by nation states and TNCs (and by traditional criminology)
- accepts national and international laws and regulations limiting harm to the environment
- criminological studies should explore the reasons for breaches of these laws

HOWEVER - Braithwaite and Drahos - ignores the ability of powerful groups to frame the law in a way that reflects their interests

ecocentric view of harm
- adopted by green criminology
- global capitalism harms people and the environment
- criminologists should focus on anything that harms the environment whether legal or illegal

Question 4

Primary and secondary green crimes

Answer 4

South

Primary green crimes
- result directly from the destruction and degradation of the earth’s resources
- all currently legal under international law, but amount of harm is caused such as that they should be included within criminological concerns and not just environmental concerns

eg air pollution - 3 billion tons of carbon
eg deforestation - 20% of world’s tropical rainforest destroyed 1960-1990

Secondary green crimes
- breaking the rules aimed at preventing or regulating the environmental disasters

eg state violence and oppression (those who protest against state actions and policies that threaten the environment, are somethings treated as enemies of the state) - blowing up of Greenpeace’s rainbow warrior
eg illegal waste disposal - japan dumping nuclear waste into the ocean

Question 5

global risk society

Answer 5

Beck

• the risks we face are more man-made than natural
• new technology has allowed us to provide for all - massive increase in standard living in the West

Like with climate change - the risks are global rather than local - late modern society being described as a global risk society

New manufactured risks - involving harm to environment and humanity

eg - Mozambique 2010 - Russia where global warming triggered hottest heatwave in century, causing wildfires so export ban of grain - global price raise leading to riots and looting of stores in Mozambique where rise in bread of 30%

Question 6

global risk society evaluation

Answer 6

+ recognises growing importance of environmental issues
+ wider ranging than traditional criminology in addressing a wider definition of harm, and including animals and plants as victims

• makes harm difficult to define objectively - moral, political and ideological definition not just criminological
• so wide ranging that it is difficult to define its boundaries

Question 7

law enforcement against green crime

Answer 7

governments responsible for creating enforcing laws that regulate and control green crime
HOWEVER - often make these policies in collaboration with business who are most likely to be principle offenders

Marxist - Snider - state are often reluctant to pass laws and regulations against pollution and other environmental harms by private businesses - avoid threatening profits, frightening off investors

Marxist Sutherland - environmental crimes - do not carry the same stigma attached to them as conventional crimes such as street crimes
- rich corporations often have social and legal power to resist being labelled as criminal - fines rather than criminal prosecution

UK environmental agency - waste crime is often organised, large-scale and profitable
Wolf - poor countries may not have resources or political will or power to enforce restrictions on things like dumping of toxic waste