Globalisation - green crime

• Green crime examples:

  • Deforestation
  • Emissions
  • Poaching
  • Oil spills
  • Dumping of hazardous waste
• Sociologists who talked about how globalisation can be linked to green crime: Beck and South
• Beck (links to globalisation) argues that:

  • We are in a 'global risk society', there are new risks and we are in a late modern society
  • Economic growth due to globalisation meant that humans could control green crime eg. flood prevention (technology) and we didn't suffer from lack of resources
  • Humans over relied on this and we created new risks
  • These are spiralling out of human control and created more problems for us eg. emissions
• The ecofeminist view revolves around the idea that women are interdependent with the environment, so these crimes hurt humans too. The earth is oppressed and exploited similarly to how women are exploited by men. Men are to blame for environmental harm and women are more in touch with nature due to their maternal instincts.
• Green criminology is a field of criminology that looks at environmental harm, green crimes, and the social/economic impacts of the harm caused by it. How do we understand human activities, policies, and norms that contribute to green crime like biodiversity loss, pollution etc
• Wolf (who commits them) identified four groups.

  • Individuals (littering)
  • Private businesses (corporate crimes)
  • Government (pollution)
  • Organized crime (global criminal networks.)
• Enforcement action is how authorities reinforce laws and rules, its how they react to crime and address violations. For instance, investigations, surveillances and warnings
• Enforcement action applies to green crime because there is a lack of enforcement action surrounding green crimes, governments are mainly respondible for the lack of enforcement of laws surrounding them. This links to how green crime can be defined by responses of society and reactions, enforcement action will not occur unless the state is forced to do something by people such as a mass of groups protesting.
• Snider (enforcement action) took a marxist perspective and argued that:

  • Governments are reluctant to enforce laws on green crimes (especially those committed by private businesses)
  • They may only do so if they are pressured to by the public.
  • Regulatory agencies and criminal justice systems often prioritize economic interests over environmental protection.
• Problems of researching green crime:

  • Difficult laws
  • Difficult definitions - because green crime includes a wide range of activities that harm the environment (pollution to illegal logging) there is no consensus definition of what green crime actually is.. So there is ambiguity and subjectivity.
  • Hard to measure - its hard to access data and information and there is underreporting
  • Ethical and political considerations - difficult to understand the root cause of green crime. Lots of green crimes are committed by powerful people, there is censorship and retaliation from government
• Three ways that sociologists define green crime:

  1. Against the law - only a crime if it goes against a states own laws or international laws
  2. Radical approach - looks at actions that are still legal but criminology needs to consider as criminal due to its nature
  3. Zemiology - dismisses anthropomorphic views on crime and argues that the law assumes humans have the right to exploit nature. Damaging nature damages humans.
• South (defining - radical approach) argued that there are two types of green crime:

  • Primary environmental crimes - legal but criminology should still look at it
  • Environmental law breaking - illegal acts which aren't regulated and rules surrounding it aren't enforced
• Whyte (defining - zemiology) argues that any crime in terms of the environment that causes damage to nature is criminal. He dismissed the idea that it has to be illegal and rejected the idea that green crimes are only crimes if they impact humans. Focus on harm.
• South (links to globalisation) argued that:

  • Damages to ecosystems are global rather than local
  • Atmospheric pollution in one country turns into acid rain in another. Leading to polluted water and destruction in forests
• South (who commits them) looked at the Sicilian Mafia's dumping of hazardous waste in the Gulf of Mexico in 2006. This can be used to argue that organised crime groups are the main perpetrators of green crimes