Green Crimes

11 Key excerpts on "Green Crimes"

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  eBook - ePub

  An Introduction to Criminology

  • Pamela Davies, Michael Rowe, Pamela Davies, Michael Rowe(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications

    (Publisher)

  However, an alternative approach to Green Crimes sometimes advocated by activists is the social legal perspective which argues that some acts, especially by corporations, ‘may not violate the criminal law yet are so violent in their expression or harmful in their effects to merit definition as crimes’ (Situ and Emmons, 2000: 3). This approach reflects the reality that the construction of crime definitions is determined by various segments of society, and a political process that means that some definitions of crime are accepted and become ‘embodied in the law’ whereas others may not (Situ and Emmons, 2000: 3). Green Crimes sometimes fall outside of our mainstream understandings of crime and some Green Crimes take place away from urban society and may not directly affect most citizens. As a result, they may be considered less important even though green criminology would argue that this is a flawed perspective given the harm some Green Crimes cause. Knowledge link: This topic is also covered in Chapter 4. Crime versus Harm A central focus of green criminology is the notion of environmental harm, a conception which incorporates the victimisation and degradation of environments and harm caused to nonhuman animals. Lynch and Stretesky (2014: 8) argue that environmental harms are more important than the personal harms of street and property crimes in terms of both being more extensive and damaging. While such crimes may have a severe impact on the individuals who experience them, most people luckily do not suffer the direct effects of crime. By contrast Lynch and Stretesky argue that ‘the environment around us is under expanded assault, that is it is routinely harmed and damaged by humans’ (2014: 9). Holley and Shearing (2018: 3) refer to the period known as the Anthropocene which they broadly define as the post-Holocene period of human interference as a driving force in the planetary system

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  Conflicts over Natural Resources in the Global South

  Conceptual Approaches

  • Maarten Bavinck, Lorenzo Pellegrini, Erik Mostert(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Green criminologists conceive humans as both threats and potential defenders of sustainable environments, applying notions of human and environmental rights and justice. Until recently, the plundering of the earth’s natural resources has not been thought of as a crime. The earth and its resources are being wasted and overexploited, a prac-tice in which numerous crimes, violations, unethical practices and irregularities are perpetrated against the environment. Criminologist Nigel South (2009) therefore pro-posed to label such acts as ‘Green Crimes’, a term he broadly defines as crimes against the environment. An equivalent of green crime is eco-crime, or ecological crime, as Reece Wal-ters (2006) explains in, The Sage Dictionary of Criminology . Walters’s (2006: 146) definition of eco-crime encompasses “acts of environmental harm and ecological degra-dation,’’ which can either be illegal and/or harmful behaviour, including threatening, damaging or destroying the natural environment. Some authors consider legal acts that are environmentally harmful, such as feeding animals with antibiotics, bio-prospecting and patenting traditional medicines and genetic material, or expanding the monocul-tures of agro-fuels, as part of eco-crime as well. Walters (2006) emphasizes, however, that a definitive definition of the term does not exist (yet), not uncommon in a new area of research. He concludes that green criminology is a useful paradigm for ana-lyzing both sociological and legal definitions of eco-crime. It “provides an umbrella under which to theorise and critique the emerging terminology related to environmental harm’’ (Walters 2006: 147). As a concept, environmental crime existed long before green criminology emerged in the early 1990s.

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  Governance of the Illegal Trade in E-Waste and Tropical Timber

  Case Studies on Transnational Environmental Crime

  • Lieselot Bisschop(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 documents environmental crime in all forms (for example, illegal logging, transportation of toxic waste, illegal dumping, poaching and so on), looks at how environmental law is developed or enforced and also focuses on topics that are more conceptual in nature. This focus fits within a broader critical development which looks beyond crime towards legally ambiguous behaviours causing social harm (Hillyard et al. 2004). Despite its significance and harmfulness, environmental crime has not been traditionally studied in criminology. The complexity of social harms in environmental issues, especially those affecting non-humans, does not quite fit criminology’s traditional focus (Lynch 2013): simply put, green or environmental crimes are crimes against the environment (McLaughlin and Muncie 2006, pp. 146–7), but green crime has been defined in various ways. The definition of environmental crime seems to depend on who is defining it and when and where the definition is used (White 2011).

  Some of these definitions take a traditional legal approach and define green crime as a violation of environmental laws. When the gaze is broadened beyond law, it includes environmentally harmful actions that are not necessarily subject to the constraints of the law as a social construction affected by interests (Tombs 2008; Hillyard et al. 2004; Westra 2004). The concept of harm is then more appropriate to refer to a variety of injuries and degradations with regard to the misuse, use and poor management of the environment and natural resources (Heckenberg 2008, p. 12). A distinction between criminal and civil or administrative violations is then not a useful indicator of harm, but a mere social construction (Lynch and Stretesky 2003). It is therefore argued that major harms are not always incorporated in the law, especially when these would go against interests of capital, rendering them neither criminal nor illegal seemingly regardless of the related harms (Passas and Goodwin 2004; White 2008). For example, agro-industry and bio-technology businesses provide examples of how industrial processes contribute to the depletion of natural resources.

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  Available until 25 Jan |Learn more

  Comparative Criminal Justice

  • Francis Pakes(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 11

  Green criminology and environmental crime

       

  When we speak of the environment, we can mean various things. The environment can be wildlife, violated through acts such as poaching or the trade in endangered species or substances such as ivory. It can also concern pollution of soil, water or air. It can refer to behaviours or structures that impact on climate change or affect scarce resources, such as illegal logging for instance. It can even refer to dumping of nuclear waste and the resources and technologies required to produce nuclear energy or weapons. It is therefore safe to say that green criminology is both broad and ambiguously defined (White, 2014). But there is no doubt that it deals with some of the most devastating human, state and corporate behaviours on our planet (South, 1998).

  Given its importance we should give it due consideration. We also need to position green criminology comparatively. A number of observations need to be made. The first is that we are not in the business of making disinterested comparisons in processes and structures of how different jurisdictions handle environmental crime. Although this is a legitimate area of inquiry much serious environmental crime is transnational in nature. The ivory trade as we will see later is essential transnational in nature, and the same is true for, say the dumping of toxic waste. Thus, patterns of harmful behaviour may well and usually do span different global regions. Second, the deeper causes of environmental crime are frequently far removed from the ‘causes of crime’ that are discussed in most criminology textbooks, and that are often focused on the individual offender and their immediate social environment. Causes of environmental crime are frequently sought in regulatory regimes and shortcomings with them; and global processes such as capitalism and neo-liberalism, which led Friedrichs to coin the term ‘crimes of globalisation’ (Friedrichs and Rothe, 2013; Rothe and Friedrichs, 2014). Relatedly, Ruggiero and South (2013) speak of ‘crimes of the economy’. Thus, global processes and structures are implicated in environmental crime, rather than just faults or weaknesses on behalf of the individual offender. Third, much environmental crime is driven by inequality. Finally, environmental crime is as much, if not more, about the making of laws as it is about the breaking of laws. Green criminology represents a particularly powerful demonstration of the importance of criminalisations

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  Emerging Issues in Green Criminology

  Exploring Power, Justice and Harm

  • D. Westerhuis, R. Walters, T. Wyatt, D. Westerhuis, R. Walters, T. Wyatt(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  For others, environmental harm is itself deemed to be a social and ecological crime, regardless of legal status. If harm is done to humans or environ- ments or animals, then it is argued that this ought to be considered a ‘crime’ from the point of view of the critical green criminologist. Specific types of harm as described in law include things such as illegal transport and dumping of toxic waste, the transportation of hazardous materials such as ozone-depleting substances, the illegal traffic in real or purported radioactive or nuclear substances, the proliferation of e-waste generated by the disposal of tens of thousands of computers and other equipment, the safe disposal of old ships and airplanes, the illegal trade in flora and fauna, and illegal fishing and logging. However, within green criminology there is also a more expansive definition of environmental crime or harm that includes (White, 2011): transgressions that are harmful to humans, environments, and nonhuman animals, regardless of legality per se; and 20 Rob White environmental-related harms that are facilitated by the state, as well as corporations and other powerful actors, insofar as these institutions have the capacity to shape official definitions of environmental crime in ways that allow, condone, or excuse environmentally harmful practices. What constitutes environmental crime is, therefore, contentious and ambiguous. Much depends upon who is defining the harm and what criteria are used in assessing the nature of the activities so described – for example, legal versus ecological, criminal justice versus social justice (see Situ and Emmons, 2000; Beirne and South, 2007; White, 2008). Most green criminology is informed by at least one of the three approaches that collectively make up an eco-justice perspective (White, 2008).

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  eBook - ePub

  Criminology

  A Sociological Introduction

  • Eamon Carrabine, Pam Cox, Isabel Crowhurst, Anna Di Ronco, Pete Fussey, Anna Sergi, Nigel South, Darren Thiel, Jackie Turton, Eamonn Carrabine, Alexandra Cox, Pamela Cox(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  part 5

  Globalising crime

  Passage contains an image

  chapter 21

  Green criminology and environmental crime

  Key issues

  ■  What is ‘green criminology’ and what can be identified as ‘Green Crimes’? ■  How are Green Crimes identified and ‘criminalised’? ■  What are the social costs of ‘Green Crimes’? ■  How do social movements shape reactions and responses to Green Crimes?

  Introduction

  Green criminology is concerned with crimes and harms affecting the environment, the planet and the associated impacts on human and non-human life. Since the early 1990s it has developed into a fertile area of study that now brings together a wide range of research interests and theoretical orientations (see e.g., Brisman and South, 2017a, 2007b; Brisman and South, 2018; Sollund, 2008; White, 2010). Green criminology is not based on any single theory or school of thought but is better seen as an evolving perspective (South, 1998a: 212–13, 1998b).

  It can be defined as:

  a framework of intellectual, empirical and political orientations toward primary and secondary harms, offences and crimes that impact in a damaging way on the natural environment, diverse species (human and non-human) and the planet

  .

  In terms of criminological lineage it most clearly arises from within the tradition(s) of critical criminology but, at the same time, it actively seeks inter- and multi-disciplinary engagement.

  It can be seen as a body of work but also as an active network of interested individuals sharing and debating ideas.

  This approach can cover several major themes, topics and problems. These include (but this is not an exhaustive list):

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  Green Criminology

  • Michael J. Lynch, Michael A. Long, Paul B. Stretesky, Kimberly L. Barrett(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  21 CHAPTER C hapter 1 provided an introduction to and overview of green criminology and Green Crimes. This chap-ter assesses the current state of green criminology by posing two broad questions: (1) What specific environ-mental issues do green criminologists study, and (2) how do green criminologists produce knowledge about Green Crimes? To address the first question, we briefly review the kinds of research green criminologists undertake and identify key themes in green criminology scholarship. To address the second question, we describe criminologists’ use of social science methods to identify, describe, and explain numerous forms of green crime and discuss five different approaches criminologists have taken to the study of green and environmental crimes. TOPICS OF INTEREST FOR GREEN CRIMINOLOGISTS The term green criminology was first introduced into the literature in 1990, when Michael J. Lynch (1990) argued that criminologists should study Green Crimes as specific examples of crimes against justice committed by the pow-erful. Of particular concern, Lynch argued, is the relation-ship between destruction of the natural environment The State of Green Criminology 2 22 Chapter 2 and dominant political-economic structures, such as global capitalism. Lynch contended that the destruction of the natural environment by powerful political-economic institutions has caused devastating levels of violence and fiscal damage that impact humans, nonhuman animals, and entire ecosys-tems. These forms of green harm—especially air, land, and water pollution caused by corporations and corporate-driven ecological consumption—were widespread, and in the late 1980s had generated a second-era environmental movement in the United States and in Europe. Lynch urged for the study of corporate Green Crimes, including their extent, the resulting harms, and the effi cacy and enforcement of environmental law.

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  eBook - ePub

  Uniting Green Criminology and Earth Jurisprudence

  • Jack Lampkin(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  As a result, conventional definitions and understandings of criminology are deep rooted in the requirements of the discipline to be concerned with behaviours that violate criminal laws. To some degree, green criminology still respects this notion and continues to research, theorise, and offer solutions to orthodox criminological problems (the illegal trafficking of plants and animals, for instance). Fundamentally though, Green Crimes can also be said to have no ontological reality and similarly manifest themselves in the human imagination. As Lynch and Stretesky (2003: 218) suggest, ‘Green Crimes, like other crimes, are social constructions influenced by social locations and power relations in society.’

  However, several scholars (see: Hillyard et al., 2004) have composed highly influential work to suggest that criminology should be preoccupied with behaviours that create harm as well as crime (deviating from the conventional contours of criminology), with harm being considered the more relevant and suitable term that covers a range of deviant behaviours. This is in contradiction to a criminology that focuses solely on the violation of criminal laws that have no ontological reality. Such a modern take on the crime-versus-harm juxtaposition has resulted in a parallel criminological discipline – that of zemiology – which has been described very simply as the study of social harms (Hillyard and Tombs, 2017).

  The significance of this crime/harm conundrum is very important in the understanding of green criminology because scholars using a green criminological perspective ‘recognise that something ought to be done about harmful activities irrespective of their legality’ (Lampkin, 2016: 31). For most green criminologists, harm is a more just object of study, regardless of whether that harm has been defined as a crime. The significance of the notion of harm arguably stems from an understanding of the dark figure

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  Transnational Crime and Criminal Justice

  • Marinella Marmo, Nerida Chazal(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  A strict legal-procedural analysis is very limiting and fails to emphasize the direct and indirect impact of environmental activities. A criminological approach would allow us to be more multidisciplinary and embrace more areas in an attempt to understand what is happening in our global society. Nevertheless, the concept of ‘environmental crime’ within criminological studies is still evolving, as the area under discussion is relatively new. Different authors have explored different problematic areas around the limits of defining ecological harm as a ‘crime’. For instance, from a criminological point of view, the debate around these themes has been initially framed in terms of environmental hazards (Lynch 1990), rather than ‘crimes’. The central argument is that certain hazards, those hazards created by humans, are ‘a subset of crime’ (Lynch 1990). This means that environmental hazards can be linked to some human responsibility, rather than other natural consequences of these processes; therefore, we have a degree of direct involvement in the creation of the problem as well as the solution, leading to an essential re-evaluation of the distribution of human, financial and technological resources. More recently, this interpretation has moved to more cogent terms, as this approach may limit ‘crimes’ to a short chain of cause and effect, or one action being directly linked to the creation of a particular hazard.

  This does not cover the larger changes exacerbated by human intervention, but not attributable to humans in the first instance (e.g. climate change). It is to be noted, in this more recent context, that the word ‘environment’ is now more inclusive and over-reaching. It incorporates a range of risk issues (Macnaghten 2006), from nuclear radiation to climate change, from the pollution of fresh water to genetically modified food, and from the production and dumping of toxic waste to trafficking in engendered species.

  Another problem highlighted around the loose concept of environmental ‘crime’ is that ‘crime’ is usually defined by the state (see Chapter 9 ). Therefore, the definition of what an environmental crime is, its regulation and punishment, is decided by the national government. So while the involvement of organized crime in dumping waste is tackled as an ‘environmental crime’ almost unilaterally by the nation-states, there are other forms of environmental crimes that have produced harms, but are yet to be officially

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  Exploring Green Crime

  Introducing the Legal, Social and Criminological Contexts of Environmental Harm

  • Matthew Hall(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  What is important however is to emphasise that as green criminology continues to develop, commentators will be called upon to adapt such established theories to meet the many new challenges thrown up by environmental harm as a (still) novel subject of criminological enquiry. Consequently, just because no single theory captures all the work that is currently calling itself (or is labelled by others as) ‘green criminology’ does not mean that green criminologists don’t draw extensively on theory 216 EXPLORING GREEN CRIME both from within mainstream criminology and beyond it. In short, therefore, while green criminology itself represents a new and quickly evolving subject of enquiry, the themes it has raised so far will be familiar territory to many in the wider criminological world. DEVELOPING A ‘GREEN’ METHODOLOGY Given the interdisciplinary nature of the area, just as trying to artificially impose a set theoretical perspective/perspectives on the subject would be restrictive, so too would any suggestion that green criminologists ‘must’ fol-low any specific methodological precepts, including those set down in this volume. The above notwithstanding, many of the examples, case studies and broader discussions found in previous chapters support the assertion made in chapters 1 and 2 of this book that environmental harm and environ-mental crime both need to be understood in their broader social, political economic and scientific contexts. The same is clearly true of the responses to such problems within civil society.

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  Green Crimes and Dirty Money

  • Toine Spapens, Rob White, Daan van Uhm, Wim Huisman, Toine Spapens, Rob White, Daan van Uhm, Wim Huisman(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  120) suggest that: Environmental crime has all of the characteristics of a twenty-first century problem. It is a hybrid challenge that cuts across the defense, security, development, and conservation worlds. It has a global reach and is transnational in nature. Furthermore, environmental crime, like war, is often highly profitable – or, to put it another way, it is often less expensive and more expedient to engage in environmental crime and harm (e.g., flouting pollution laws) than to undertake (potentially costly) practices that abide by the law and respect the Earth’s limits (see generally Vogel and Raeymaekers 2016, p. 1104). Around the world, regressive laws have extended land use rights, and supported and legitimised expectations of high profits for investors involved in the expansion of large-scale agriculture, mining, logging and infrastructure projects. These same laws have also facilitated the movement of extractive activities into encroachment upon indigenous territories (Global Witness 2014, pp. 6, 7). As one counter-response, recognising indigenous land claims may assist with the protection of the lives and cultures of indigenous peoples and their environment – and, indeed, the planet as a whole (because the destruction of tropical forests around the world is one of the largest sources of emissions contributing to climate change) (Global Witness 2014, p. 3). Thus, for example, if the problem of illegal logging is linked to insecure land tenure and has given rise to increased violence against indigenous communities – as Global Witness (2014, p. 5) claims – then the ‘solution’ would seem to be to secure land tenure for indigenous communities as a means of reducing deforestation. 14 Clarifying who owns what and where may help break the money-environmental harm-conflict chain (see de Vos 2016, pp. 13, 15, 28 for a discussion), although, of course, this may not be applicable in all situations

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