Green crime

Question 1

What is green crime?

Answer 1

actions which cause harm to any aspect of the living world
- green crime can be linked to globalisation e.g the nuclear power industry at Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine has widespread effects; radioactive fallout from the incident were found to have dumped by atmospheric winds in parts of wales

Question 2

Beck - global risk society

Answer 2

• beck argues that we live in a global risk society which means that risks in the modern era are man made or manufactured risks so we cannot predict the consequences of these e.g global warming

Question 3

Traditional criminology vs green criminology

Answer 3

Traditional crim
- only interested in law breaking activity that was against people or organisations
- there are national international laws and regulations that monitor and define what crime is — anyone breaking these laws is being criminal

Green crim
- white argues that if harm is done to the environment, humans and animals this should be the subject of green criminology regardless of its legal status
- transgressive criminology because it oversteps the traditional boundaries of criminology

Question 4

White (2008) - develops the concept of harm

Answer 4

He has two views
- anthropocentric view
- humans have the right to dominate nature for their own use and humans can exploit nature because of ownership
- humans are separate from nature so they see it as their opportunity to make it their priority and take advantage

Ecocentric view
- humans and nature are dependent on each other and they need each other to survive as humans are apart of nature
- this is the view green criminology adopts

Question 5

South - Types of green crime

Answer 5

He identifies 2 types of green crime

Primary crimes
- crimes of air pollution
- crimes of deforestation
- crimes against animal species
- crimes of water pollution

Secondary crimes
- state violence against environmental pressure groups
- e.g 1986 french secret service blew up a green peace ship as they thought it was interfering with their intelligence
- operation of organised crime groups, profiting from environmental crime
e.g dumping toxic waste in developing worlds — breach of health and safety which causes disaster