Theorising Green Criminology

Rob White’s pioneering work in the establishment and growth of green criminology has been part of a paradigm shift for the field of criminology as it has moved to include crimes committed against the environment. For the first time, this book brings together a selection of White’s essays that explore the theories, research approaches and concepts that have been instrumental to our understanding of environmental harm and eco-justice. The book provides an additional foundation for scholarship that goes beyond expression of opinion or immediate empirical finding; the emphasis is on systematic analysis and theoretically informed consideration of complex realities. It serves as a platform for further debate and discussion of green criminology’s theories, perspectives, approaches and concepts and their application to specific sub-areas such as environmental law enforcement, wildlife trafficking, pollution and climate change. Its aim is not to provide answers, but to stimulate further dedicated theoretical contemplation of environmental harms, threats to biodiversity and extinction of species. This is essential reading for all those engaged with green criminology, as well as criminological theory, eco-justice and environment and sustainability studies.

Few criminologists have drawn attention to the fact that widespread and significant forms of harm such as green or environmental crimes are neglected by criminology. Others have suggested that green crimes present the most important challenge to criminology as a discipline. This book argues that criminology needs to take green harms more seriously and to be revolutionized so that it forms part of the solution to the large environmental problems currently faced across the world. It asks how criminology should be redesigned to consider green/environmental harm as a key area of study in an era where destruction of the earth and the world’s ecosystem is a major concern and examines why this has remained unaccomplished so far. The chapters in this book apply an environmental frame of reference underlying a green approach to issues which can be addressed from within criminology and which can encourage criminologists and environmentalists to respond and react differently to environmental crime.

This edited collection is grounded in a green criminological approach to understand whether the law, both in effect and implications, reflects, refracts, or sublimates the social, political and ecological conditions of our times. Since its initial proposal in the 1990s, green criminology has focused the criminological gaze on a wide array of harms and crimes affecting humans, animals other than humans, ecological systems, and the planet as a whole. As a continuously blossoming field of criminological inquiry, green criminology recognizes and examines behaviours that are both illegal and legal (yet detrimental), and in varying ways has made great efforts to provide insight into harms in a more fulsome manner. At the same time, there have been many significant legal instances, domestic, and international, including case law, legislation, regulation, treaties, agreements and executive directives which have troubled the law’s understanding of green harms, illegal and legal activity, pushing legal boundaries in the process. Recognizing that humanity and nature are inextricably integrated, Green Criminology and the Law reflects the range and depth of high-quality research and scholarship, combining contributions from established scholars willing to explore new topics and recent entrants who are breaking new scholarly ground.

This groundbreaking text provides students with an overview and assessment of green criminology as well as a call to action. Green Criminology draws attention to the ways in which the political-economic organization of capitalism causes ecological destruction and disorganization. Focusing on real-world issues of green crime and environmental justice, chapters examine ecological withdrawals, ecological additions, toxic towns, wildlife poaching and trafficking, environmental laws, and nongovernmental environmental organizations. The book also presents an unintimidating introduction to research from the physical sciences on issues such as climate change, pollution levels, and the ecological footprint of humans, providing a truly interdisciplinary foundation for green criminological analysis. To help students succeed in the course—and to encourage them to see themselves as future green criminology researchers—the end-of-chapter study guides include: • Questions and Activities for Students that review topics students should be able to conceptualize and address. • Lessons for Researchers that suggest additional areas of research in the study of green crime.

Over the last two decades, "green criminology" has emerged as a unique area of study, bringing together criminologists and sociologists from a wide range of research backgrounds and varying theoretical orientations. It spans the micro to the macro—from individual-level environmental crimes and victimization to business/corporate violations and state transgressions. There have been few attempts, however, to explicitly or implicitly integrate cultural criminology into green criminology (or vice versa). This book moves towards articulating a green cultural criminological perspective. Brisman and South examine existing overlapping research and offer a platform to support future excursions by green criminologists into cultural criminology’s concern with media images and representations, consumerism and consumption, and resistance. At the same time, they offer an invitation to cultural criminologists to adopt a green view of the consumption landscape and the growth (and depictions) of environmental harms. Green Cultural Criminology is aimed at students, academics, criminologists, and sociologists with an interest in green criminology and cultural criminology: two of the most exciting new areas in criminology today.

Drawing on the work of Allan Schnaiberg, this book returns political economy to green criminology and examines how the expansion of capitalism shapes environmental law, crime and justice. The book is organized around crimes of ecological withdrawals and ecological additions. The Treadmill of Crime is written by acclaimed experts on the subject of green criminology and examines issues such as the crime in the energy sector as well as the release of toxic waste into the environment and its impact on ecosystems. This book also sets a new research agenda by highlighting problems of ecological disorganization for animal abuse and social disorganization. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and academics in the fields of criminology, political science, environmental sociology, and natural resources.

In the 21st century, environmental harm is an ever-present reality of our globalised world. Over the last 20 years, criminologists, working alongside a range of other disciplines from the social and physical sciences, have made great strides in their understanding of how different institutions in society, and criminal justice systems in particular – respond – or fail to respond – to the harm imposed on ecosystems and their human and non-human components. Such research has crystallised into the rapidly evolving field of green criminology. This pioneering volume, with contributions from leading experts along with younger scholars, represents the state of the art in criminologists’ pursuit of understanding in the environmental sphere while at the same time challenging academics, lawmakers and policy developers to explore new directions in the study of environmental harm.

Over the past ten years, the study of environmental harm and ‘crimes against nature’ has become an increasingly popular area of research amongst criminologists. This book represents the first international, comprehensive and introductory text for green criminology, offering a concise exposition of theory and concepts and providing extensive geographical coverage, diversity and depth to the many issues pertaining to environmental harm and crime. Divided into three sections, the book draws on a range of international case studies and examples, and looks at the conceptual and methodological foundations of green criminology, before examining in detail areas of environmental crime and harm, and how they are addressed, including: climate change and social conflict; abuse and harm to animals; threats to bio-diversity; pollution and toxic waste; environmental victims; environmental regulation, law enforcement and courts; environmental forensic studies; environmental crime prevention. Green Criminology is packed with pedagogical features, including dialogue boxes, case examples, discussion questions and lists of further reading and is perfect for students around the world engaged with green criminology and crime against the environment.