Green Criminology: Theories, Concepts

and Connected Meanderings

Nigel South

ESRC Green Criminology Seminar

Northumbria University

October 2012

some remarks on influences and biography and understanding of the development of some theories and concepts in green criminology

A „perspective‟ not a „theory‟

1998 essay: „the case for the enhancement of

environmental consciousness in criminology and

the development of a green perspective.‟

Aims were „both modest and ambitious. Modest ... no claim to put forward a 'theory' for or of, 'a green criminology'‟ but emphasise the „importance of „thinking green‟ as a sensitising perspective‟ and „ambitious‟ in the sense that I argued that „such a perspective should now find a prominent place on the criminological agenda.‟

An inter-disciplinary perspective

„green issues open up a wide range of possibilities for inter-disciplinary work, both within the social sciences and with the natural sciences, seeing criminologists collaborating with economists, geographers, biologists, health specialists, human rights workers, lawyers and others‟

four key questions arising from my title:

first, 'why a Green criminology?‟; second, 'what kinds of existing work might this build upon?‟; third, 'what theoretical issues are opened up?‟;

and finally, 'what directions might a green criminology pursue?'‟ perhaps these 4 questions merit some brief revisiting.

possible influences on those of a certain age

simultaneously thinking about green issues, animal rights, environmental protest movements, ecofeminism and so on: New deviancy theories > sensitivity to the plight of the powerless and marginalised Marxist crim > highlighting of the crimes of the powerful and that frameworks of law represent entrenched biases and interests largely hinging on protection of property rights – can see how this leads to questioning of „whose property?‟,‟how and why did it come to belong to someone else so they could do such destructive things with and to it?‟

Feminist criminology impact > crimes of men, victimization of women, marginalisation of women as actors (as criminals, victims, protestors) - Men responsible for violation of women, civilized life, and environment and other species. Peacemaking criminology > respect and conflict mediation and reconciliation – easy to see how translates into an idea that we should be treating the planet differently and less aggressively

publication chronology: essay and the journal special issue Theoretical Criminology, 1998, 2,2, Beirne and South, eds. preceded by some years by Lynch‟s 1990 piece on „The Greening of Criminology: A Perspective on the 1990s‟ in an issue of The Critical Criminologist. However, as Lynch acknowledges, while a far-sighted piece no one saw it / popularised it ...

The point is not so much that Lynch was „first‟ -though that does deserve acknowledgement –

but that between around 1990 and the end of that decade, the time was obviously right for the emergence of a green criminology various scholars around the world started to write and communicate about similar issues and concerns.

Criminology and the zeitgeist

Personal engagement: early thoughts about a „green criminology‟ were developed for a 1996 undergraduate lecture series; interest in pollution followed from interest in public health but used the phrase a „green criminology‟ to complement lectures on other „new horizons‟ in criminology such as „feminist criminology‟, „post-modern criminology‟, „comparative criminology‟, „historical criminology‟ ... nb see „Horizons‟ section in Ruggiero (et al) 1998, The New European Criminology

independently, same issues and questions identified for a green criminology in an age of environmental change. - Australia, US, Canada, Europe Beirne and South (eds) 2007; White 2008; Sollund (ed) 2008; Eman, et al, 2009; Walters, 2010, plus ...

some Definitions and Distinctions

(i) Field of Study; (ii) Legal and non-legal classification of Status of Actions; (iii) Conceptualising and Typologising Harms and Crimes

(i) Field of Study;

Green criminology: •not intended to be a unitary enterprise - diversity is one of its great strengths

•an evolving perspective (see, e.g., South 1998: 212-213; see also White 2008:14)

• a loose framework or set of intellectual, empirical and political orientations toward problems (harms, offences and crimes related to the environment, different species and the planet).

•an ‘open’ perspective and framework, arising from within the tradition(s) of critical criminology but actively seeks inter- and multi-disciplinary engagement.

•both a network of interested individuals and a forum for sharing and debating ideas.

Terminology

White (2008) :‘environmental criminology’ - reclaim from what is more properly considered ‘place-based criminology’ White (2010:6) also offered the term, ‘eco-global criminology’, to ‘refer[] to a criminological approach that is informed by ecological considerations and by a critical analysis that is worldwide in its scale and perspective . . .’. Walters (2010) the term ‘eco-crime’ is capable of encapsulating ‘existing legal definitions of environmental crime, as well as sociological analyses of those environmental harms not necessarily specified by law’. Other formulations include ‘conservation criminology’ (Gibbs et al. 2010) which is concerned with evidence-based practice addressing environmental crimes and risks, PS (Interestingly, Bottoms in latest (fifth) edition of the Oxford Handbook of Criminology, titles his chapter „Developing Socio-spatial criminology‟ with one reason for the name change being given by the author as the possible confusion that might arise if „environmental crime‟ were used as a description „because it is sometimes used to refer to the important emerging field of „green‟ criminology‟ (Bottoms, 2012: 451).)

At present criminologists most frequently employ the term ‘green criminology’ to describe the study of ecological, environmental or green crime or harm, and related matters of speciesism and of environmental (in)justice...

So far – very western / transatlantic / global north dominated literature communicating in English with little translated work which makes it seem likely that there are other research literatures in other languages and in areas not seen as criminology, law or social science but that would be highly relevant. For example, pioneering work from Slovenia by Pečar (1981) put forward early warnings about new ecologically damaging forms of criminality

Whatever the descriptor - agreement on several major themes, topics and problems. pollution and its regulation; corporate criminality and its impact on the environment; health and safety in the workplace where breaches have environmentally damaging consequences; involvement of syndicated crime and official corruption in the illegal disposal of toxic waste; the impact and legacy of law enforcement and military operations on landscapes, water supply, air quality and living organisms populating these areas—human, animal and plant; as well as forms of law enforcement and rule regulation relevant to such acts

(ii) The legal or non legal status of actions.

• Shover and Routhe (2005: 324) argue that „criminal conviction of environmental “crime” requires prosecutors to demonstrate either that defendants knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly violated the law or were negligent.‟

• S & R also suggest we could consider a category of environmental „illegalities‟ which „by contrast, are violations of rules that do not require demonstration of intent to violate‟

•overlap with the category of „harms‟ - not actually breaking laws but morally and ethically argued to be anti-social, damaging or even lethal in consequences

(iii) Typologies of Harms and Crimes

One suggested typology derives from a distinction between primary and secondary green crimes (Carrabine et al, 2004). a simple but suggestive way of differentiating clusters of harms and crimes by classifying some as: resulting directly from the destruction and degradation of the earth’s resources, and others as: those crimes or harms that are symbiotic with or dependent upon such destruction and efforts made to regulate or prevent it.

Carrabine et al 2004, 2013.

1. Crimes / Harms of air pollution

2. Crimes / Harms of deforestation 3. Crimes / Harms against animals

4. Crimes / Harms of water pollution

White (2008:98-99)

a threefold typology of „brown‟, „green‟ and „white‟ issues: ‟brown‟ issues tend to be defined in terms of urban life and pollution e.g air pollution, disposal of toxic/hazardous waste, oil spills, „green‟ issues refer to conservation matters and „wilderness‟ areas e.g., acid rain, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction „white‟ issues refer to the impact of new technologies and various laboratory practices e.g., animal testing and experimentation; cloning of human tissue.

Lynch and Stretsky (2007: 251)

four problems with which a green criminology should be concerned: critical examination of environmental policies and offering meaningful alternatives where appropriate; environmental justice and the „unequal distribution of environmental hazards across diverse races and classes‟ (p.256); the „health impacts of exposure to environmental toxins‟; and the links between toxic exposure and criminal behaviour, for example, associated between lead, cadmium and mercury and behavioural changes that produce increases in aggression and violence (p.261).

Criminology is particularly prone to amnesia about its own intellectual history (Young, 1979: 11), a condition then corrected as old theories and insights are „remembered‟, revived, re-interpreted and applied anew.

Agnew is currently applying classic criminological theories to his analysis of the environmental harms caused by the everyday behaviours we all engage in Lynch (2013) has recently written of the „eco-city‟ – essentially an approach to small scale community living organised according to green principles shaping energy, transport and economic systems. ... With respect to crime, an eco-city approach can be easily integrated with the premises of social disorganization theory

green approach to urban - or any local - environmental design can also be a way of rethinking and re-orientating „crime prevention through environmental design‟ methods (though the early versions of this often did include planting – albeit sometimes for the prickly deterrent qualities of some bushes rather than the aesthetic, civilising and calming effect now emphasised by some researchers – see e.g Pretty et al, 2013)

Postmodernism Peacemaking Victimology Feminism

Personal: Green crimes and public health impacts Victims and victimisation Domestic: Home / Local / National „everyday actions and behaviours‟ Consumption and waste

Transnational: Global crime(s) / Harm(s) against humanity and the planet Legal framework „Ecocide‟ Intergenerational: The future; horizon scanning;

Personal: Public health – This is an impact on the person Lynch and Stretesky (2001) expose the hazards and health consequences for human populations associated with the presence of toxic waste, pesticides and dioxin in our environments, both global and local. Williams (1996) has written of the need for an „environmental victimology‟

Domestic: Home / Local / National „everyday actions and behaviours‟; Consumption and waste ; Everyday ecocide Unless, arising in the course of war and conflict, much of this activity is a product of the economic forces that require and enable production and consumption

Un/Natural harms, disasters, climate change and chains of events

Transnational „We're now moving into a new geological epoch, one scientists are calling the Anthropocene – a world remade by man, most obvious in his emissions of carbon dioxide‟ McKibben (2011) disasters are themselves a part of chains of events, from the establishment of the conditions that caused the event or ensured its consequences would be the more devastating through to the sequelae.

long-standing criminological concern with the question of how to provide

„protection‟

Can international and/or national laws offer the space for the protection of the environment? Can rights be constructed and upheld as applying to non-human subjects / objects? At what point does such a „right‟ become „meaningful? Proposals to enhance rights and justice will rest on a notion of a sustainable future for the planet, humanity and the wider environment, ensure these rights are longstanding and consider the matter of intergenerational justice.

Rights, ethics and Earth jurisprudence: applying the concept of

ecocide

Over the past few decades a number of commentators have, as Cullinan (2011:144) puts it: „drawn attention to the need for legal systems to take an evolutionary leap forward by recognizing legally enforceable rights for nature and other-than-human-beings.” >>> “the evolution of earth jurisprudence” Stone (1972) has questioned whether the widening of protection and rights to the formerly disempowered should be extended to natural objects such as trees Berry (1999:161) argued that: “we need a jurisprudence that would provide for the legal rights of geological and biological as well as human components of the Earth community. A legal system exclusively for humans is not realistic.”

attribution of rights to animals and various other forms of non-human life is highly contested Even the principles of conservation give rise to controversy: „Should we kill for the sake of conservation? Can conservation biologists do good science, saving species and ecosystems while also being compassionate? (Bekoff, 2010: 24).

Genocide and ecocide:

Rosa Del Olmo argued that historically drug crop eradication programs should be seen as a form of state crime and she described this as : „a transnational crime of broad scope which we can

call eco-bio-genocide.‟

Polly Higgins (2010, 2012) has campaigned for the introduction of Ecocide as a 5th international Crime against Peace under a proposed amendment to the Rome Statute treaty

Higgins proposed the following as an amendment to the Rome Statute: Ecocide is the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.

original definition of genocide crucially identified the destruction of a people by other factors not directly involved in killing. Ecocide can and often does lead to cultural damage and destruction. Like genocide, ecocide can be direct and indirect; it can be the destruction of a territory and it can also be the undermining of a way of life - ecological as well as cultural.

links nicely to my fourth dimension in time and space - the intergenerational. the “common heritage” of Earth‟s natural resources, fresh water systems, oceans, atmosphere, and outer space belongs to all generations in an inter-temporal partnership.‟ (Weston 2012)

We may now be approaching what some scientists have referred to as our „planetary boundaries‟ – the extent to which we are already over or nearing our planet‟s ability to cope once nine boundaries are breached by damage

There is much to change and much to challenge if we are to respond to this looming crisis. In its own ways, a green criminology can make its contribution.