Green criminology

Question 1

overview

Answer 1

A traditional criminology approach suggests that if no laws are broken when pollution that causes global warming is created, it does not consider it a crime. The advantage of this is that it has a clearly defined subject matter, but it is criticised for accepting official definitions of environmental problems & crimes which are often shaped by powerful groups such as big business to serve their own interests.

Question 2

1

Answer 2

Green criminology takes a more radical approach by starting with the notion of harm rather than criminal law. White (2008) argues that the proper subject of criminology is any action that harms the physical environment &/or the human & non-human animals within it, even if no law has been broken. Many of the worst environmental harms are not illegal (e.g. air pollution caused by manufacturing that does not go beyond fixed carbon emissions), & so the subject matter of green criminology is much wider. Due to this, it is known as transgressive criminology as it oversteps (transgresses) the boundaries of traditional criminology to include new issues.

Furthermore, different countries have different laws, so that the same harmful action may be a crime in one country but not in another. Therefore, legal definitions cannot provide a consistent standard of harm & by moving away from a legal definition, green criminology can develop a global perspective on environmental harm. However, green criminology is criticised for making subjective value judgements
about which actions ought to be regarded as wrong.

Question 3

Policing green crime

Answer 3

Green crime is extremely difficult to police for two main reasons:

1. There are very few local or international laws governing the state of the environment. International laws are particularly difficult to construct because not all countries agree to sign up to global agreements. E.g. both China & the USA have been reluctant to agree to meet international targets to reduce carbon emissions.
2. Many of the laws that do exist are shaped by powerful capitalist interests, especially global ‘big business’. Governments, especially in the developing world, are generally reluctant to rein in transnational corporations because they are dependent on the income these companies generate. Enforcement of laws that do exist to protect the environment is therefore often weak.