Environmental Crime and its Victims

Perspectives within Green Criminology

Toine Spapens, Rob White, Marieke Kluin, Toine Spapens, Rob White, Marieke Kluin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317142324
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Criminología

Environmental crime is one of the most profitable and fastest growing areas of international criminal activity. These types of crime, however, do not always produce an immediate consequence, and the harm may be diffused. As such, the complexity of victimization - in terms of time, space, impact, and who or what is victimized - is one of the reasons why governments and the enforcement community have trouble in finding suitable and effective responses. This book provides a diverse and provocative array of arguments, critiques and recommendations from leading researchers and scholars in the field of green criminology. The chapters are divided into three main sections: the first part deals with specific characteristics of some of the major types of environmental crime and its perpetrators; the second focuses explicitly on the problem of victimization in cases of environmental crime; and the third addresses the question of how to tackle this problem. Discussing these topics from the point of view of green criminological theory, sociology, law enforcement, community wellbeing, environmental activism and victimology, this book will be of great interest to all those concerned about crime and the environment.

PART I
Examining the Crime and the Victimization Problem

Chapter 1
The Criminogenic Effects of Environmental Harm: Bringing a ‘Green’ Perspective to Mainstream Criminology

Gary Potter

Introduction: Environmental Harm as Social Harm

Environmental problems, in particular those caused by human economic activity, are among the defining issues of the twenty-first century. For many people, damage to the environment is seen as problematic in its own right: nature has intrinsic value, and harm to nature is something to care about purely because of this. Increasingly, however, environmental harm is recognized not just as a problem for the natural world, but as a major contributory factor in a broad array of social problems: environmental harm often causes, exacerbates or otherwise contributes to social harm. From a social science perspective, it becomes clear that the social world cannot be understood in separation from the natural world.

Current sociological thinking recognizes this: human-caused environmental damage is seen as one of the major contributors to contemporary ‘risk society’ (Giddens 1991; Beck 1992). The concept of the risk society recognizes the way that late-modern societies are characterized by the distribution of and exposure to the ‘manufactured risks’ associated with industrial and post-industrial economic activity. In relation to environmental harm, we can point to the way industrial society has contributed to (among other things): the production of greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting substances and other air-, water- and land-borne pollutants; the acidification of oceans; the depletion (locally and globally) of natural resources including old-growth forests, mineral deposits, fish stocks and fresh water; the use of radioactive materials for energy production or warfare; the production and distribution of carcinogenic and other harmful chemicals; the destruction of natural habitats, and the depletion of biodiversity. Related manufactured risks include: global warming; damage to the ozone layer; increased incidences of cancers, birth defects and other health problems; desertification of once-fertile land and sea areas; food, water and other resource shortages, and unpredictable changes to local and global eco-systems and weather patterns (climate change). Specific tangible harms range from the physical (including death, injury and illness; damage to and loss of property) through the economic (loss of production and economic opportunities; increased competition for resources; costs of physical consequences of environmental victimization) to the cultural (loss of traditional ways of life; impacts of migration and urbanization). Such harms overlap with broader contemporary economic and political concerns and have a tendency to increase inequality and social conflict.

Along with other social sciences, the academic field of criminology has begun to engage with the environmental harm/social harm nexus, not least through the emergence and development of a distinct ‘green criminology’ in the last two decades or so. However, while green criminology has made significant contributions to the understanding of specifically ‘green’ crimes, with a few notable exceptions (particularly around the likely impact of climate change on crime; Agnew 2012; Hall and Farrall 2013) criminology has been slow to engage with any wider analysis of how environmental harm contributes to contemporary patterns of crime more generally.

The purpose here is to go some way to fill this gap. Primarily, this chapter serves to outline and categorize the various connections between environmental harm and crime, with a particular focus on the overlap between environmental victimization and criminality. The aim here is not so much to produce an exhaustive list of crimes that have an environmental element to their genesis as to provide a framework for understanding how environmental problems may relate to contemporary and future patterns of crime, and hence to criminology in general. Such a cataloguing exercise is useful in its own right, especially as we uncover so many more connections between environmental harm and crime than are normally considered in the literature. However, the aim here is to go further and to tentatively develop the theoretical bases to our understanding of the interplay between harms to the environment and the general problem of crime.

The argument is that an ecological perspective can make important contributions to criminological theory: broadly speaking, as we increasingly recognize that sustained environmental harm often creates social harm, and that environmental victimization often contributes to criminality, it follows that criminology should recognize environmental harm not just as crime, but as an important contributory factor in the genesis of crime. If we accept the prediction that environmental problems – and therefore related social problems – are likely to persist, and probably accelerate, as we move further into the twenty-first century, we should recognize that the links between this and crime are also likely to accelerate. This leads to the final aim of this chapter: to make the argument that a green criminology (that is, a criminology that is informed by an ecological as well as a social science) deserves to be seen as having something useful to say about the problem of crime as a whole, rather than remaining a niche area confined to focusing on the sub-category of environmental crime.

Environmental Harm as Criminogenesis

To illustrate the importance of an ecologically informed perspective to a full understanding of contemporary and future patterns of crime and criminalization, we need to consider the range of ways in which environmental harm is implicated as a direct or indirect causal factor in crime. The aim here is essentially to present a list of examples drawn from the academic literature, media reports (and some personal observations and experiences) to make the case that environmental harm in general contributes significantly to crime in general, and therefore should be of central interest to criminology. The aim is not to be definitive: there are undoubtedly more examples of the criminogenic aspects of environmental harm to be included, and much quantitative research and theoretical analysis is needed to understand the incidence and relative severity of the different types of crime and their links to different types of environmental harm. Likewise, the aim is not to produce a thorough literature review: the aim is to bring together discussion on the different ways in which crime and environmental harm are related, not to exhaustively review the literature in each example. Disclaimers aside, it is hoped that what follows is sufficient as a tentative typology that both begins to shape further academic work in this area and substantiates the claims made in the discussion and conclusions that follow.

Primary Green Crimes: The Criminalization of Environmentally Harmful Activities

Just as one of the ‘causes’ of crime is the labelling of certain activities as criminal in the first place (Becker 1963), one way in which environmental harm contributes to increases in crime is through the criminalization of environmentally harmful practices. Much green criminological work to date has focused on this area, and a good starting point for current purposes is to draw on one well-established typology of green crimes. Carrabine et al.’s concept of ‘primary green crimes’ covers ‘direct … damage and destruction caused to environment and species’ (Carrabine et al. 2009, p. 394), and includes ‘air pollution; deforestation; species decline and animal abuse; and water pollution and resource depletion’ (Carrabine et al. 2009, p. 389). The point here is that ‘most (if not all) of these have been the subject of legislative efforts (if not necessarily legislative success) in recent years’ (Carrabine et al. 2009, p. 389).

To illustrate how significant the criminalization of environmentally harmful activities can be, we can draw on the example of recent legislative action in the UK. The New Labour government of Tony Blair (1997–2007) was notorious for creating new crimes (that is, expanding the scope of the criminal law to cover an increasingly wide variety of behaviours). It was widely reported in the media that over its ten years in power, 3,605 new offences were created, of which 852 came from legislation originating in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This was more than that instigated either by the Home Office (which we would normally associate most readily with criminal legislation¹) or the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform² (which we might expect to be involved in corporate and financial crime). The trend is reflected elsewhere, and it has been stated that the fastest-growing area of international law is environmental law (Sands and Galizzi 2004).

The use of criminal law to restrict or regulate environmentally harmful activities is not new: Carrabine et al. (2009, p. 397) cite examples from the 1940s and 1950s, and common law rights to clean water date back to at least the sixteenth century in the UK. Often these laws are direct responses to public health concerns – the Clean Air Act 1956, for example, has its genesis in the great London fog, or ‘killer smog’, of 1952. As Hall and Farrall (2013) point out, the criminalization of environmentally harmful activities (both the creation of new crimes and the more rigorous enforcement of existing laws³) reflects public and professional attitudes about what activities should be seen and treated as criminal as much as the intrinsic harm related to specific activities. It follows that the more the public become aware of – and demand action on – environmentally harmful activities, the more such activities will likely be subject to criminalization. With an increase in both actual environmental problems and awareness of the extent and nature of harms stemming from them (through greater access to information via the Internet, for example), it seems likely that the criminalization of environmentally harmful activities (the creation of primary green crimes) will continue to expand.

Secondary or Symbiotic Green Crimes: Crime as a Response to the Criminalization of Environmental Harms

Carrabine et al. compare primary green crimes to secondary or ‘symbiotic’ ones: ‘crime growing out of illegal or negligent government or corporate activity, which can even include the flouting of rules set by such bodies themselves to regulate environmentally sensitive activities’ (Carrabine et al. 2009, p. 318). Examples given are state violence against oppositional groups (such as the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior by the French secret service, resulting in the death of one crew member) and the involvement of organized crime in the transportation and dumping of hazardous waste (Carrabine et al. 2009, pp. 394–6). However, arguably this conceptualization does not go far enough in covering criminal activity that might be considered as symbiotic green crime. With some consideration, the concept of secondary green crimes can be further developed and we can identify a number of sub-categories.

Corporate Crime Relating to the Avoidance or Evasion of Environmental Regulation

Examples here might include public and private bodies engaging in illegal dumping of waste, in fraud to cover up levels of pollution produced, or in corruption to avoid the introduction or enforcement of legislation in the first place (see, for example, Pellow 2004; Ruggiero and South 2010; Walters and Martin 2012). The primary green crimes with which these examples are symbiotic involve efforts to criminalize excessive pollution and waste production.

Organized Crime Involved in Trafficking of ‘Products’ Subject to Environmental Legislation

Along with the example of trade in hazardous waste (see, for example, Szasz 1986; Scarpitti and Block 1987; Ruggiero 1996), we have the transportation and marketing of endangered species and their products and body parts (see, for example, Wyatt 2012; Wyatt 2013). Here, controls over dumping of hazardous waste along with bans on poaching and trade in particular species would be the related primary green crimes.

Crimes of Repression Against Oppositional Groups

Here the state or other powerful vested interests (including corporations and organized crime groups) break the law in an attempt to repress environmental campaigners or those who try to enforce the law. As well as the example of the Rainbow Warrior cited above, we can point to a number of examples where high-profile conservationists and environmental campaigners have been assassinated.⁴ In a similar, if less extreme, vein we have the widely reported alleged misuse of police powers in the UK, for example, including the controversial technique of ‘kettling’ protesters (see Oreb 2013), the use of undercover police officers to infiltrate environmental campaign groups and the police exaggerating levels of violence among campaigners when policing protests. Here it is the efforts of environmental campaigners to prevent environmentally harmful activities, and the efforts of corporate bodies to counter such campaigns, with which these crimes are symbiotic.

Crimes of Protest in Response to Enforcement of Environmental Protection Laws

Although Carrabine et al. (2009) define secondary green crimes specifically as those committed by governments and corporations, there are also crimes committed by less powerful groups and individuals that share common characteristics with other symbiotic green crimes. Just as powerful interests break the law in attempts to avoid their activities being constrained as primary green crimes, so do other groups affected by the enforcement of laws seeking to protect the environment. An example here would be the riots in and around Puerto Maldonado in Peru in 2012. Here, the government decided to make a concerted effort to clamp down on illegal gold-mining in the region, an activity banned because of the environmental damage resulting from the leaking of mercury used in mining into local water systems poisoning fish and other creatures (including humans) as the heavy metal entered the food chain. Many local communities were economically dependent on this illegal activity; enforcing the ban left many miners unable to provide for their families. The response across the area was large-scale riots, with mining communities turning to violence (met, in turn – some observers suggest – by excessive violence from the state).⁵ Other examples can be found, particularly (but not exclusively) across the developing world, where communities dependent on illegal mining, logging, poaching or drug crop cultivation violently resist law enforcement activities.

It is clear that symbiotic green crime can exist in many more forms than those suggested by Carrabine et al. (2009), and that they are not limited to (even if they are dominated by) powerful bodies such as states, corporations or organized crime groups. As such, we might propose an alternative definition according to which symbiotic green crimes are those crimes that stem from efforts to avoid the enforcement (or introduction) of legislation designating environmental harmful practices as (primary green) crime. If the criminalization of environmentally harmful activities does continue to expand, then it seems likely that there will also be a growth in these secondary crimes.

Beyond Secondary Green Crimes: Environmental Harm as a Cause of Crime

The categories of primary and secondary green crimes cover the breaking of laws designed to protect the environment, and the commission of other crimes in an attempt to avoid such laws. However, these do not cover all the ways in which environmental harm contributes to criminal activity. A further group of crimes, which we might (in the spirit of consistency) choose to label as ‘tertiary’ green crimes, can be identified: those committed by environmental victims or as a result of environmental victimization. Splitting these into further sub-categories, we can recognize crimes committed as a deliberate or direct response to environmental harm and crimes exacerbated by the experience of environmental victimization.

Crime as a Response to Environmental Harm: Protest and Direct Action

One way in which environmental harm leads to crime involves how individuals and groups respond directly to environmental victimization. Williams (1996) argues that violen...