Green Crime

Defined by Nigel South as a 'crime against the environment'
Linked to globalisation - regardless of transnational boundaries the planet is one unified eco-system. It is not local.
Green crime goes beyond political borders
Beck (1992): Global Risk Society. Risks in the modern era are man-made/manufactured and so we cannot predict the consequences
1. E.g. fracking. We need oil + gas but the fracking process could lead to ground collapse or earthquakes
Examples of green crime include:
1. Primary Crimes: crimes where the environment itself is damaged
  1. air pollution
  2. species extinction
  3. water pollution
  4. Bush fires
  5. deforestation
2. Secondary Crimes: crimes that come out of conflict between humans and the environment, but are not defined as harm to the environment
  1. dumping of hazardous waste
  2. fly tipping
  3. state violence against oppositional groups
Traditional green criminology
1. focuses on green crime that has broken environmental law.
2. interested in regulations concerning the environment
3. Situ and Emmons (2000): define environmental crime as 'an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law'
4. investigates the patterns and causes of law breaking
5. Structuralist + positivist
Contemporary green criminology
1. More concerned with the idea of harm than criminal law. They are interested in the study of zemiology (study of social harms)
  1. Link to Beck
2. White (2008): 'proper' criminology is about action which is deviant or harmful but does not necessarily break the law
3. aka transgressive criminology because it crosses the boundaries between law breaking and new issues of harm
4. criminal law is relative to each country so the same harmful environmental action may not be a crime in one country but it is in another.
5. Legal definitions cannot provide a consistent standardisation of harm and definitions of green crime are affected by political processes
6. contemporary green criminologists have developed a global perspective on environmental harm. These sociologists are cultural sociologists.
Transnational organisations adopt an anthropocentric view of environmental harm which means they believe that humans have the right to dominate nature for their own gain. Economic growth comes before the environment.
1. link to Marxism
Toxic waste is sold to developing nations to be disposed of which contributes to eco-poverty.
1. link to Marxism
Evaluation
1. Strengths
  1. recognises the growing importance of environmental issues and the need to address the harms and risks of environmental damage, both to humans and the environment
2. Weaknesses
  1. it is hard to define the boundaries of the study of green crime because it focuses on broader concerns of harms rather than simply on legally defined crimes
  2. defining the boundaries of green crime involves making moral judgements
  3. Positivist critics would argue that the study of green crime is a matter of values and cannot be established objectively
Marxism and green crime
1. green crime is an act of power
2. the RC shape and define the law to benefit their own exploitative interests on the environment
3. green crime is focused on a smaller scale to detract from large organisations
4. Laws benefit transnational corporations
Eco feminism
1. believe in an ecocentrc view that people, particularly women, are interdependent with the environment
2. environmental harm hurts humans too
3. both the environment and humans are liable to exploitation, especially by global capitalism
4. the earth is oppressed and exploited in the way that women face patriarchy. Men are to blame for environmental harm. Women do not harm the earth due to their 'natural' and maternal instincts

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	Created by charfitzjohn almost 9 years ago