Green Crime

Question 1

Define green crime

Answer 1

Green crime refers to crimes and/or harms done to the environment, including to non human animals

Question 2

Two types of green crime

Answer 2

Primary green crime
Secondary green crime

Question 3

What is primary green crime

Answer 3

Crimes that result directly from the destruction of the environment
(Directly hurts the environment)

Question 4

What is secondary green crime

Answer 4

These crimes grow out of the flouting of rules aimed at preventing environmental disasters
(Action which goes against a regulation out in place to protect environment even if it doesn’t harm environment)

Question 5

Examples of primary green crime

Answer 5

Crimes of air pollution
Crimes of deforestation
Crimes of species- decline and animal rights
Crimes of water pollution

Question 6

Crimes of air pollution

Answer 6

Potential crimes include governments, businesses and consumers
AO2- Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Question 7

Crimes of deforestation

Answer 7

Potential criminals include the state and those who profit from forest clearing (logging companies and cattle ranchers)
AO2- BBC news “the rate of deforestation has increased so much that Indonesia has for the first time surpassed Brazil in the rate of its clearance of tropical forests”.

Question 8

Crimes of species decline and animal rights

Answer 8

Trafficking in animals and animal parts, dog fighting and badger baiting
AO2- poachers slice off the faces of live rhinos to steal their horns,
helicopters used to shoot down elephants for their tusks,
factory farmers breed captive tigers to marinate their bones for medicinal wine

Question 9

Crimes of water pollution

Answer 9

Criminals include companies who dump toxic waste and governments who discharge untreated sewage into rivers and seas
AO2- ‘Gulf oil leak was the largest marine oil spill in history that resulted in an explosion on British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon oil rig causing 11 deaths and the release of million barrels of crude oil into Gulf over 87days’

Question 10

Examples of secondary green crime

Answer 10

State violence against opposition groups
Hazardous waste and organised crime

Question 11

State violence against opposition groups

Answer 11

Where the state commit violent acts against civilians to protect their interests
AO2- Rainbow Warrior sinks after explosion

Question 12

Hazardous waste and organised crime

Answer 12

Toxic waste is very expensive to dispose of safely so businesses may dispose of it illegally
AO2: Malaysia flooded with plastic waste. Malaysia’s imports of plastic waste from its 10 biggest source-countries jumped to 456,000 tonnes between January and July
2018.
AO2: In Italy ‘eco-mafias’ profit from the illegal waste dumping. Legal disposal of toxic industrial waste is expensive, 50 businesses may dispose of it using ‘eco-mafias’ who profit from illegal dumping.

Question 13

Explanations of green crime

Answer 13

Harm- White (transgressive approach)
The anthropocentric approach
Global risk society and the environment (Beck)

Question 14

Harm- White (transgressive approach)

Answer 14

• Traditional criminology has been concerned with studying acts that clearly break a well-defined set of laws.
• Rob White has argued that criminology should study any action that causes harm either to individuals or to the environment regardless of whether or not a law has been broken.
•A considerable amount of harm is done to the environment by actions that do not appear to break any specific law.
Eg, some of the most destructive harms against the environment are not illegal = deforestation / disposing of toxic
• Green criminology is thus a form of transgressive criminology

Question 15

AO3 Harm- White

Answer 15

This approach is similar to the Marxist idea of the crimes of the powerful. TNCs and nation states use their power to define in their own interests what counts as environmental harm. It oversteps the boundaries of traditional criminology to include new issues.

Question 16

The anthropocentric approach

Answer 16

These groups take an anthropocentric view of environmental harm. Humans have a right to dominate nature, putting economic growth before the environment.
TNCs and nation states may take this approach. This is because they believe humans have a right to dominate nature, putting economic growth before the environment.
Green criminologists take an ecocentric view (that humans & their environment are interdependent, so that environmental harm hurts humans also). This view sees both humans AND the environment as liable to exploitation, particularly by global capitalism.
From the ecocentric view it is possible to see the destruction of green spaces / woods / forests for the building of airports, factories, motorways as green crimes as they harm the environment.

Question 17

AO3 Anthropocentric approach

Answer 17

Marxists would support this Green Criminologist explanation for why we have Green Crime in society as they argue that the ruling class are purely interested in profit and clearly put profits ahead of protecting the environment.

Question 18

Global risk society and the environment (Beck)

Answer 18

•Beck argues that most threats to human wellbeing and the ecosystem are now human made rather than natural disasters.
• In late modern society, the massive increase in productivity creates new, manufactured risks. These risks are increasingly on a global scale, so Beck describes late modern society as global risk society.
• For example, we in the UK can enjoy fresh fruit and vegetables all year round because of excessive farming in poorer hotter countires
•This damages the natural environment but allows healthier diet

Question 19

AO3 Global risk society and the environment Beck

Answer 19

Functionalists would argue that poorer countries producing fresh food for UK citizens is helping that society’s economy. This ensures the smooth running
running of that society’s infrastructure (i.e. it’s schools and hospitals)