Green Criminology Flashcards
What are the key readings?
Beirne & South (2007)
Lynch (2020)
Potter (2010)
What are the key points of Beirne & South (2007)?
Defining Green Criminology=
Extends criminology to environmental harm and human, animal, and ecological rights.
Explores harm that may not be legally defined as crime but causes significant damage.
Environmental, Human, and Animal Rights
Recognizes environmental rights, human rights, and animal rights.
Advocates for legal frameworks to criminalize environmental destruction affecting humans and animals.
Types of Environmental Harm
Pollution: Contamination of air, water, and land.
Deforestation & Biodiversity Loss: Habitat destruction via logging, mining, urbanization.
Wildlife Crime: Poaching, illegal trade, habitat destruction.
Animal Exploitation: Factory farming, animal testing, cruelty.
Climate Change: Human-driven environmental harm.
Criminalization of Environmental Harm
Critiques the lack of criminalization for long-term environmental harm.
Highlights corporate and state complicity in environmental degradation.
Role of Capitalism & Globalization
Capitalism and globalization drive environmental harm through profit-driven exploitation.
The Global North exploits the Global South for resources, causing social and environmental injustice.
Environmental Justice & Social Inequality
Environmental racism: Marginalized communities face disproportionate harm from pollution.
The Global South faces exploitation and environmental destruction by wealthier nations.
Animal Rights & Green Criminology
Expands criminology to include crimes against animals and advocates for animal welfare laws.
Emphasizes the protection of animal rights within green criminology.
Policy Recommendations & Solutions
Calls for stronger legal frameworks and corporate responsibility.
Advocates for global cooperation and policy changes to reduce harm to ecosystems and animals.
Encourages grassroots activism to raise awareness and challenge harmful practices.
What are the key points from Lynch (2020)?
Emerged in the 1990s in response to corporate and state environmental harm.
Influenced by radical, critical, and eco-justice perspectives.
Challenges anthropocentric criminology by prioritizing environmental protection.
Key Theoretical Foundations
Political Economy Approach: Examines capitalism and corporate exploitation of natural resources.
Ecological Justice: Argues environmental harm affects all species, not just humans.
Environmental Justice: Focuses on marginalized communities being disproportionately affected by harm.
Types of Environmental Crimes & Harms
Pollution: Air, water, and soil contamination from industries.
Deforestation & Biodiversity Loss: Caused by logging, mining, and urban expansion.
Wildlife Crime: Includes poaching, trafficking, and habitat destruction.
Climate Change: Results from industrial activity and state inaction.
Green Criminology vs. Traditional Criminology
Green criminology includes broader harms beyond legal definitions of crime.
Calls for incorporating scientific environmental research into criminology.
Critiques weak environmental laws and poor enforcement.
Challenges in Green Criminology
Lack of enforcement: Environmental crimes are often ignored or under-punished.
Corporate & state influence: Governments prioritize economic growth over environmental protection.
Defining environmental harm: Many harmful activities are legal but destructive.
Future of Green Criminology
Advocates for a green criminological revolution to integrate environmental concerns.
Calls for stronger laws, policies, and activism to combat ecological destruction.
Emphasizes the need for criminology to address climate change and ecological collapse.
What are the key points from Potter (2010)?
Theoretical Perspectives in Green Criminology
Anthropocentric: Views environmental harm based on human impact (health, economy).
Ecocentric: Argues that nature has intrinsic value, independent of human interests.
Political Economy Approach: Explores how capitalism and global inequality drive environmental crime.
Corporate & State Environmental Crimes
Corporations exploit natural resources for profit with minimal accountability.
Governments often fail to regulate or actively contribute to harm (e.g., weak policies, lobbying).
Environmental Justice & Social Inequality
Environmental racism: Marginalized communities face disproportionate harm from pollution and climate change.
Global North vs. Global South: Developing nations bear the ecological damage while wealthier countries benefit.
Regulation & Enforcement Challenges
Weak laws and poor enforcement allow corporate and state environmental crimes to persist.
International agreements like the Paris Agreement often lack strong enforcement mechanisms.
Solutions & Future Directions
Calls for stronger laws and corporate/state accountability.
Emphasizes the role of public awareness and activism to challenge environmental harm.
Advocates for sustainable policies that balance development with ecological protection
What are the criminological influences?
Thinking about green issues, animal rights + environmental protest movements
New deviancy theories
Marxism criminology
How is new deviancy theories in relation to GC?
Sensitivity to the plight of the powerless and marginalised
How is the marxism crim in relation to GC?
Highlights the crime of the powerful and that the frameworks of the law represent biases and interests hinging on protection of property rights
Who defined green criminology?
Ruggiero and South
What did Ruggiero and South say?
Green crim is a framework of intellectual, empiricam and political orientations toward primary and secondary harms, offences and crimes that impact in a damaging way on the natural environment, diverse species and the planet
What is the focus, key issues and examples for conventional crim?
State defined crime
Legal/illegal
Illegal trade, stealing flora and fauna, pollution offenses
What is the focus, key issues and examples for green criminology?
Justice (human, ecological and animal rights)
Harms and violation of rights within an ecological justice framework
Environmental rights and justice, citizenship and justice, animal rights and species justice
Who looked at the primary green crimes and harms?
South 2014
What are the primary green crimes and harms?
Crimes/harms of air pollution
Crimes/harm of deforestation
Crimes/harms against non-human species
Crimes/harms of water and ground pollution
Who looked at green topics investigates to date?
Ruggiero and South 2010
What are the green topics?
Pollution and its regulation
Corporate criminality and impacts on the environment (human/wildlife)
Health and safety breaches in the workplace
Illegal disposal of toxic waste involving organised crime and corrupt officials
Speciesism, animal abuse and wildlife trafficking
What is the impact of environmental degradation?
Pollution, loss of biodiversity, animal extinction, habitat destruction, deforestation and desertification
What is the cause of the environmental degradation?
Human disturbance
Industrial revolution
Mechanised production
Use of fuels as energy
Urbanisation
Population expansion
Increased energy consumption
Who looked at environmental degradation?
Harrison and Pearce 2000
What happened pre 1500 with environmental degradation?
Global extinction of whole species, many large mammals lost and long term climate change
What happened 1500-1760 with environmental degradation?
Capitalist growth leads to resource shortage and land degradation
What happened 1760-1965 with environmental degradation?
Capitalist industrialisation, urbanisation, change in rural environments and forest loss
What happened with contemporary society with environmental degradation?
Global warming + climate change, marine depletion, overspills, hazardous waste and nuclear risks
Who wrote about globalisation and risk society?
Beck 1992
What did Beck say environmental degradation is a result of?
A risk society
What do modern societies do according to Beck?
Create new risks (including green crimes) that are manufactured through modern technologies
What are dangers according to Beck?
They are human produced
What does Giddens say about society?
Society is ordered in response to risk, society is preoccupied with the future and generates the notion of risk
What are the findings from state of climate change 2018?
Decrease in global oxygen continues
2 million people displaced by weather and climate linked disasters
35 million people affected by floods
Ocean acidification is ongoing
Climate change threats peatland ecosystems
Who looked at indigenous environmental injustice and harms?
Lynch et al 2018
What are the points from Lynch et al?
INP and victimisation through green crimes
Victimisation through the context of capitalist treadmill of production
Colonialism, imperialism and genocide
INP genocide occurs through ecocide associated with the continued expansion of capitalist treadmill of production
What is the case study INP Borneo?
There is extensive deforestation driven by an intersection between demand for timber and weak internal state control
Dramatic effects for the Penan
Efforts to transform the Penan into settler communities into the 1950s led by UK corporate interests
Palm oil plantation, plans for rare metal extraction and coal mining
Who looked at critical criminology and the fight against climate change?
White and Kramer
How is the dominance of neo-liberal (White and Kramer)?
Guiding rationale for commodification of nature accelerates degradation
Who speaks about capital hegomony?
White 2002
What did White 2002 say?
Capitalist hegomony is manifest in the way of destructive forms of production and consumption are part of everyday life
What factors are interconnected (White and Kramer)?
Bio security, state action and corporate colonialisation of nature
