Green Crime Flashcards
What does green criminology think about green crime?
1) The proper subject of criminology is any action that harms the physical environment and/ or the human and non-human within it, even if it does not break a law
2) It is a form of transgressive criminology - it oversteps the boundaries of traditional criminology to include new issues
3) Thinks that legal definitions cannot provide a constant standard of harm, since they are the product of individual nation-states, therefore green criminology can develop a global perspective
What does traditional criminology think about green crime?
1) Not been concerned with with such behaviour, since no law has been broken
2) Starting point for this approach is the national and international laws and regulations concerning the environment
3) Situ and Emmons define environmental crime as ‘an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law’
4) It is criticised for accepting official definitions of environmental problems and crimes, which are often shaped by powerful groups such as businesses to serve their own interests
What are the two views of harm to do with the environment?
1) Anthropocentric view - assumes that humans have a right to dominate nature for their own ends, and puts economic growth before the environment
2) Ecocentric view - sees both humans and the environment as liable to exploitation, particularly by global capitalism. Green criminology accepts this view as the basis for judging environmental crime
Give two examples that show that most of the threats to human well-being and eco-system are now human-made
1) Acid rain
2) Accidents in nuclear industries
What does Beck say has created new ‘manufactured risks’?
The increase in productivity and the technology that sustains resources
Why does Beck describe late modern society as ‘global risk society’?
Because many of the new risks, such as greenhouse gases causing global warming, are global in nature rather than local
