Human-Environment Relationship: Insights from Green Criminology

Environment is a vital part of our life even when we face economic crisis, war and other type of social problems. Environment matters as it provides us air, food, shelter and other needs. Although environment is an inseparable part of our life, we often ignore the wellbeing of environment. I didn’t even concern about environmental harm before taking the course ‘Current Issues in Criminology’. In relationship between human and environment essay I will discuss the matter of this course and show personal reflection. This course has opened my eyes and made me rethink about the environmental issues. This course basically focuses on ‘green criminology” and its subject matters.

Environmental harm has long been ignored by the criminologist and researchers as well. Traditional criminology focuses on the causes and control of legally defined crimes. Critical criminologists have challenged this narrow perspective and argued that people sometimes commit acts which are arguably more harmful than those crimes that are legally defined by criminal law. To address the issue, the term ‘green criminology’ was evolved by Nigel South in 1990 as a critical approach to study environmental harm and crime. Green criminology applies criminological thought to analyze environmental issues such as environmental harm, crime and environmental regulations etc. environmental crime is an ambiguous and complex issues. Sometimes focusing on the acts which are legally defined as environmentally criminal are not sufficient to incorporate all environmental harm and crimes. Therefore, a social harm approach has been used by the critical criminologist to widen the narrow approach to incorporate all harms and crimes against environment.

First of all, I would like to mention some academic learning which I have learned throughout the course. I have acquired knowledge of three broad perspective of philosophical framework relating to human and environmental nexus, such anthropocentric, biocentric and ecocentric which was pretty interesting and give me insight about the relationship between human and environment. It helps me to understand how environment is being exploited historically for satisfying the human needs. How power structure play an important role in this process of exploitation of environment. Anthropocentric philosophy makes me contemplative about the future wellbeing of environment since it is very much concentrated on the human interest which put environment at stake. Although biocentrism is very much ideological perspective, I prefer myself at the side of biocentrism as it emphasizes on ‘biocentric equality’ which means human being and non-human species have equal rights to live in this earth. Ecocentric perspective try to do balance between anthropocentrism and biocentrism and tries to minimize harm of environment and maximize opportunity for human being. It is a good approach to support, but it makes me doubtful about the feasibility of this approach. Since human needs are beyond any limits, they want more and more. Therefore, it is very much skeptical whether environmental wellbeing and opportunity maximization of human being can coexist. Therefore, the necessity of the environmental regulation and enforcement are immense that can make people accountable and hold their needs and greed into the limit. However, I will discuss about environmental regulation in the later part of my paper since I have also gathered some knowledge regarding environmental laws and regulation in this course. I want to mention some other topics which were at the same time new and interesting to me, such as human ecology, liberal ecology, ecomarxism, deep ecology, eco feminism, social ecology and so on. Particularly, ecofeminism is most favorite to me because it shows the pure relationship between women and earth. Chipko movement would be the best example to demonstrate this relationship between women and earth. I would love to mention many other interesting topics which I have learned, but it is not possible to includes all of them in this short essay.

Moreover, I have always been fascinated by the theoretical explanation of crime. Although green criminology is not enriched with the theoretical background, I found it more interesting when I discover the new scope of applying traditional criminological theory in green criminology, such as how rational choice theory influence a potential offender to make a rational choice to commit environmental crime for profit maximization and how the same concept can be used in a counter way to prevent environmental crime by sanctioning high amount of fine. Although there are many criticisms about the effectiveness of compensation or fine in preventing environmental crime, I think it would be a interesting area of study; further in-depth study can be conducted in this topic. Moreover, social learning, self-control theory, opportunity theory can be applied to explain environmental harms and crimes. On the other hand, situational crime prevention, techniques of neutralization, routine activity theory can be used to explore the prevention strategies of environmental crime. These innovative theoretical applications are really interesting to me, particularly, Agnew’s theoretical explanation about ‘the impact of climate change on crime’ has stunned me. Some extra disciplinary theories, such as the tread mill of production, Marxist eco-socialism can be used to explore the political economy of environmental crime. I have always been a fan of Karl Marx as, personally, I assume that he can be fitted in every aspect of social science. There is no other better way except Marxist eco-socialism to understand the impact of capitalism on the environmental degradation.

I have also come to know about different environmental crimes such individual and collective environmental crime. According to the joint report of United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and INTERPOL in 2016, environmental crime is the fourth largest criminal enterprise worldwide, just behind drug smuggling, counterfeiting and human trafficking. However, most of the environmental harm is committed by the corporate companies in association with the state. This course mostly focuses on the corporate crimes against environment such as oil spills, illegal logging, environmental damages by coal fired power plants, coal industries, oil companies and so on. State complicity is crucial in commission of environmental crime by corporations. Giant corporations continue environmental harm by lobbying and political donations. For example, according to Center for Responsive Politics reports, the coal mining industry provides over 50 million dollars for political campaign. I have gained insight about how capital shapes the duties of state. As Schnaiberg said, “state is the best mechanism for reducing the harm caused by production.” On the contrary, Treadmill of Production theory suggest that state’s duties and interests are mostly shaped by the capital and desire for increased tax revenue. Most of the time corporate companies influence environmental enforcement within the company by corporate lobbying and campaign contribution. To hold corporate companies accountable, strict environmental enforcement by state is necessary.

If I did not choose this course, I would never understand the devastating impact of environmental crimes on environment. Environmental crime covers a broad area of activities which violates environmental legislation and causes harm to both environment and human health, such as improper management of waste, wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, oil spills and so on. I was shocked to know that harm causes by coal fired power plant is more severe than the street crime as stated by Lynch and Barret, “the deaths causes by the pollution of coal fired powered plant are about 1.5 times more likely than homicide”. Moreover, the New York Times reported in 2012 that 5867 violations of the Clean Water Act had been committed by 628 coal fired power plants. It caused a huge amount water pollution and increased the health risk of exposure to these toxins. Similarly, illegal logging has huge impact on environment as well. Unchecked illegal logging causes deforestation, global warming, and loss of biodiversity as well as play a vital role in climate change through the reduction in carbon sequestration capacity. America and Canada have already lost 60 percent of its wild life species because of illegal logging. Moreover, it causes a loss of 10 billion USD for the legal timber industry as well as 5 billion USD in tax revenues of governments annually. Oil spill is another major problem. It causes severe damages to the marine life by killing birds, marine mammals, fish, wild life habitat and their breeding grounds. For example, Exxon Valdez oil spill killed around 250000 to 500000 seabirds and bald eagles. The Bp oil spill is the largest oil spill worldwide and killed 11 and injured 17 people initially as well as caused mass dolphin deaths. There are many other impacts of environmental impacts causes by the other types of environmental crimes. Therefore, the severity of environmental damages are deteriorating day by day. To ensure the wellbeing of our environment, environmental regulation and enforcement is very much important.

This course also covers environmental law, regulation and enforcement to some extent, such as it has discussed about law of ecocide, role of environmental courts, and NGOs. I found the idea of ‘green NGOs’ and ‘green policing’ are great as they can play role in policy making, law enforcement, and public campaigning to create awareness among people about wildlife crime. These would be a great initiative to create awareness among people about and as a response to the environmental crime. The law of ecocide emphasizes on holding a person accountable for mass damage and destruction.

To talk about the gap of this course, I would say this course does not focus on the individual level environmental crime such as what types of environmental crime can be occurred at individual level, who are the most likely perpetrators, and how to prevent those crimes. Since I am doing course-based masters and don’t have thesis, but I have a plan to do a thesis-based masters focusing on green criminology. Hopefully, I will be able to apply these academic knowledges in my future study. However, above all, these academic knowledges will help me to be an environmentally concern citizen.

Besides developing my understanding in green criminology, I have gained an understanding of how to critically engage with and assess research. It has developed my analytical skill through exchanging ideas with classmates and improved my writing skill as well. Since there are some PHD students in our class with better understanding and knowledge of social science, I have also learned a lot from them. Most importantly, I have also acquired knowledge of how to facilitate public presentation as well as how to talk in front of people. Since I am a shy person, I have always avoided talking in front of people. After finishing this course, I think, I will be able to talk in front of audience. I will definitely revise my intellectual autobiography and include all these achievements in it.