Quantitative Studies in Green and Conservation Criminology

The Measurement of Environmental Harm and Crime

Michael J. Lynch, Stephen F. Pires

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429844225
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

During the early development and throughout the short history of green/conservation criminology, limited attention has been directed toward quantitative analyses of relevant environmental crime, law and justice concerns. While recognizing the importance of establishing a theory and terminology in the early stages of development, this book redresses this imbalance. The work features contributions that undertake empirical quantitative studies of green/conservation crime and justice issues by both conservation and green criminologists. The collection highlights the shared concerns of these groups within important forms of ecological crime and victimization, and illustrates the ways in which these approaches can be undertaken quantitatively. It includes quantitative conservation/green criminological studies that represent the work of both well-established scholars in these fields, along with studies by scholars whose works are less well-known and who are also contributing to shaping this area of research.

The book presents a valuable contribution to the areas of Green and Conservation Criminology. It will appeal to academics and students working in these areas.

1
Introduction to quantitative and empirical studies in green and conservation criminology

Michael J. Lynch and Stephen F. Pires

This book contains examples of quantitative/empirical studies useful for further development of green and conservation criminology. Here, we shall use the abbreviation GCC to refer to green/conservation criminology. There are two issues we need to address before elaborating on the subject of this book further.

The first issue is: why an edited book specifically addressing quantitative and empirical studies in GCC? We provide some extensive discussion of these reasons below. For now, however, it is important to note that any field of research which hopes to advance and to generate useful (i.e., applicable, policy relevant) knowledge requires the collection and analysis of data. Researchers often pose hypotheses about the relationship between things or what philosophers call “stuff” in the world around them. These hypotheses and explanations may be simple or elaborate. To know whether those hypotheses make sense and are useful, data that allows those hypotheses to be tested are required. Useful hypotheses – those that are not rejected by data – can then be employed to construct theories that help explain the world around us.

Historically, this view is linked to the emergence of what are now called the British Empiricists, who extended the perspective taken by Sir Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism, in the late 1500s and early 1600s. This view is based on collecting and observing data through the use of inductive reasoning, which later was more specifically broadened into the scientific method.

In short, then, empirical studies are useful because they add to the GCC knowledge base by testing relevant GCC hypotheses through an exploration of interesting and important research questions. The ability to address research questions empirically also provides the kind of information and knowledge that can be useful to policy makers interested in constraining green harms and injustice. For example, Petrossian, Marteache, and Viollaz (2015) examined factors associated with unloading illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessel catches. One of their findings was that IUU vessels were more likely to visit large ports with high volumes of vessel traffic. They suggest that by doing so, IUU vessels may be better able to conceal their illegal activity. This finding suggests that improving inspection protocols at those kinds of ports could reduce IUU fishing activities.

Second, some might object to the fact that we appear to use the terms quantitative and empirical interchangeably. To be sure, in some cases this is true to the extent that empirical data – that is information that is collected about the world in specific ways that allow those observations to be analyzed – and quantitative analysis can be the same thing. That is, you cannot have a quantitative analysis without first having empirical data. Empirical data, of course, need not be quantitative alone, and some forms of empirical data can be subject to certain types of qualitative analysis. In short, in using these terms, what we are referring to are studies that offer observations about the world around us based upon the purposeful, methodologically sound (i.e., scientific) collection of data. This approach excludes, therefore, general discussions about concepts such as harm, which are certainly important to defining the boundaries of GCC but which are, as a result of the absence of data, subjective and continually open for debate.

Empirical research and perceptions/evaluations by others

It has also been argued that empirical research by conservation and green criminologists is important for enhancing the perception of GCC by traditional criminologists. This argument suggests that by engaging in empirical and quantitative research, GCC demonstrates a willingness to engage with mainstream criminology (Lynch et al., 2017a). This is, in our view, no small issue. It can be argued that within criminology, several important areas of research have been marginalized because those research areas tend to emphasize descriptive analyses, while the majority of the criminological literature is empirical in orientation (see below for further discussion). GCC research focuses on one of the most important concerns in the contemporary period – ecological harms – and how those harms impact ecological stability and, some would argue, the survival of different species. In our view, given the importance of ecologically related research, it is unfortunate that GCC should be overlooked within criminology due to a lack of empirical research. Moreover, this is a situation that can, as the chapters in this book illustrate, be addressed and remedied. With those observations in mind, the empirical studies in this book serve as important examples of the kinds of empirical work criminologists in this field can pursue to expand criminological knowledge concerning environmental issues and problems, enhance the policy relevance of GCC, and perhaps promote greater attention to this area of research and greater acceptance of this work within (as well as outside of) criminology.

In taking that position, it is not our intention to imply that the existing GCC literature suffers from any particular kinds of flaws other than a deficiency in the volume of empirically oriented research. More specifically, it is within the green criminology literature in particular where this empirically oriented deficiency is the greatest, and our observations about empirical research apply less so to the conservation criminology literature.

Intersections of green and conservation criminology

As editors of this collection, each of us has been more closely associated with one of the two forms of criminology addressed here. Sometimes, it seems, conservation and green criminologists travel in different circles, and there is often not significant overlap between these views even though they address the same set of issues, and researchers from both approaches are committed to exposing, researching, and addressing the significant ecological problems of our times from a criminological perspective. To be sure, there are some theoretical differences between conservation and green criminology, and as noted, conservation criminologists are much more likely to engage in empirical research than green criminologists. Despite those differences, however, and in the spirit of promoting enhanced collaboration between these approaches, we offer the chapters in this volume as an example of how both approaches can address environmental crime and justice concerns, and how a collaboration between green and conservation criminologists can promote studies focused on ecological issues.

As background for this collection, in the following sections, we build upon the comments made above. We begin with some background information concerning GCC that addresses the use of empirical and qualitative data. The sections that follow examine the use of quantitative data in general terms, obstacles to generalization, and the extent to which various kinds of data are generalizable. This is followed by a discussion of the extent to which empirical data is employed in the social sciences, conservation sciences, within criminology and within GCC. That discussion illustrates that the literature in each of these fields relies heavily on empirical data, and that in conservation science there has been growing awareness of the need for additional empirical research. We then discuss some limitations that might be associated with the neglect of empirical research by green/conservation criminologists. The chapter ends with some discussion of the chapters found in this collection.

Generating “knowledge”: the general state of green criminology’s methods

As Lynch et al. (2017a) have argued, the vast majority of criminological research – approximately 90% – is empirical. However, when examining the GCC literature, a much smaller percentage of studies are empirical in nature (see Chapter 3). For example, about half of all criminology and criminal justice peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic of wildlife crime – a branch of GCC – have been empirically driven, and only one-fifth are quantitatively focused (McFann and Pires, 2019). Within the green criminological literature, at most 10% of the published research is empirical (Lynch et al., 2017a). From these facts, one might conclude that GCC, like some critical criminological approaches, harbors an anti-empirical bias. We do not believe that such conclusions are warranted about GCC. Rather, we suggest that as in any newer field of research, a great deal of attention has been paid to defining the scope of this area of research and its key terms, and to identifying the various types of behaviors that can be considered or counted as environmental, green, or conservation crimes. It is, however, we suggest, time to move a larger portion of GCC research beyond these kinds of questions as they cannot make up the bulk of the GCC literature.

Certainly, studies that identify the core subject matter of GCC are necessary and relevant, and no area of research can develop if there are inconsistent definitions of relevant concepts and disagreements about the scope of that area of research. After all, what we wish to avoid is a situation such as the one that surrounds research on white collar crime, where a definitional quandary concerning that areas’ core concept can still be said to exist after nearly 80 years of study (Podgor and Dervan, 2016). But once researchers in an area demarcate, explore, and hopefully settle, at least in part, these boundary and definitional issues, the time comes to move beyond those concerns and to assess and apply those arguments. While academically, one might find it interesting to debate definitions endlessly, doing so fails to move a useful research agenda or to produce research results that could be employed in ways that can generate real-world changes that might, in the case of GCC, reduce harms to ecosystems and species.

Definitional studies may also provide a variety of typologies of green/conservation crimes and behaviors, and in doing so, again have utility for conceptualizing those crimes and laying the groundwork for research on these subjects. It should be noted, however, that typologies, like theories, can be empirically tested, and it is important to know how the real distribution of environmental and conservation crimes fits into those typologies, and whether the typologies fit reality and enhance their utility (see the example in Podgor and Dervan, 2016 on white collar crime).

A number of GCC studies add to the above arguments by examining specific examples of related offenses and offenders, and sometimes those studies describe those offenses and offenders using empirical data. More often than not, in green criminology, that empirical data has been subjected to qualitative interpretations (and often not qualitative analysis) rather than quantitative assessments. When collected and analyzed appropriately, qualitative data has many important uses and can certainly contribute to an understanding of green crime. The use of qualitative data can, however, have several important limitations, which have been discussed relative to the empirical literature found within green criminology (Lynch et al., 2017a). Some of those limitations relate specifically to the kinds of methods of analysis and data and sampling methods employed in green criminological research. As Lynch et al. (2017a: 191) note,

Case studies… are not chosen on the basis of random sampling (i.e., they contain selection bias), but are specifically selected to illustrate a particular type of problem – or the emergence of a particular problem in a particular place – thereby limiting their broader applicability and utility.

This case selection method limits the ability to generalize. As Lynch et al. argue, the N of a case study is often 1, and lacking other important methodological considerations, statistically speaking, cannot produce generalizable knowledge. This is an important concern. To be sure, there are ways to address this concern. If there were, for instance, a substantial number of case studies on a well-identified, specific topic, research could later collect data from those case studies and perform a meta-analysis, an issue that has been addressed in the broader environmental literature (Matarazzo and Nijkamp, 1997; Rudel, 2008). In this case, quantitative assessment of qualitative (empirical) results can be employed to aggregate research findings from individual case studies, enhancing the ability to generalize from those results when presented as meta-analysis results. On their own, however, single case studies often fail to generate the kinds of knowledge that allow the building of a large base of knowledge that is, at the same time, generalizable. Case studies thus can limit the acceptance and appeal of such research results in disciplines that largely build knowledge from empirical studies and also limit the utility of such research for building policy responses that address ecological harms or conservation/green crimes and injustices.

The extant GCC literature also contains some excellent historical studies of green crimes that contain rich descriptive content needed to understand how these behaviors change and emerge over time, and how those behaviors are conceptualized and treated within societies as societies evolve. Some excellent examples of these kinds of studies are found in the work of Piers Beirne (1995, 1997, 2004; Yates, Powell and Beirne, 2001). Some studies also use qualitative data to address the processing of conservation crimes, using interviews with enforcement personnel or legal documents as data, and these studies, too, have a place in the GCC literature (Moreto, Brunson and Braga, 2016; Moreto and Matusiak, 2017). To be sure, these are all important studies that address issues and forms of information relevant to developing GCC, and, moreover, GCC cannot fully develop without them. But these cannot be the only types of studies GCC generates. More to the point, GCC cannot fully develop and be more broadly integrated into the quantitatively oriented field of criminology without quantitative studies. Here, we also limit our comments because these issues are also explored in Chapter 3 in this collection by Lynch, Stretesky, Long, and Barrett.

Quantitative analysis and criminology in general

In brief, most criminologists value quantitative studies and research that tests hypotheses related to the study, distribution, causes, control, and punishment of crime (for more on this point, see below), and these kinds of studies, as we shall show below, make up the vast majority of the published content in criminological journals. It is difficult to pinpoint any particular reason the criminological literature is so heavily empirical. One reason this occurs, however, is because historically, criminologists have placed great value on empirical studies, and the earliest studies of crime attached to the history of criminology (e.g., Quetelet in 1831, and later Lombroso in 1876) were empirical in orientation.

Quantitative studies have long been employed to gain knowledge about the world around us and processes that occur in that context. Quantitative studies, when approached correctly, provide important information about relevant hypotheses and are useful for assessing whether a given theory or hypothesis is empirically sustainable and worth retaining and developing. Certainly, one could, depending on how they evaluate empirical criminological knowledge, claim that the use of quantitative assessments has worked rather poorly, leading to very few cases where a hypothesis, but more importantly, a theory has been rejected. In part this has to do with the fact that there is no agreed-upon criteria for rejection of a hypothesis or theory within criminology, resulting in the use of criteria where weak relationships are accepted as definitive evidence of an effect by individual researchers using perhaps subjectively identified criteria. As a result, criminology tends to be rather theoretically “stocked” – by which we mean that there are many theories that attempt to explain crime. Empirical evidence does not, however, dramatically favor any particular theory of crime, and though many theories have some level of empirical support, those theories are also often in conflict with another, meaning that they point to opposing or contradictory claims about the causes of crime. There are, one could argue, quantitative ways to settle these conflicts – but those methods have not been widely employed within criminology (e.g., rival hypothesis testing). In contrast to the situation in criminology generally, conservation and green criminology contain less debate about the causes of ecological harms but offer less empirically relevant, generalizable material and findings to build upon. Thus, the situation within green/conservation criminology with respect to the use of empirical methods and data is different than the situation within the field of criminology more generally. In this sense, conservation/green criminology is at a different phase of development than criminology and needs to attend to a different set of issues.

One of the advantages of quantitative and empirical studies is that when they are carried out correctly, they can be generalized and applied. That is, they ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction to quantitative and empirical studies in green and conservation criminology
• 2 The branches of green criminology: a bibliometric citation analysis 2000–2017
• 3 What we “know”: a review of quantitative studies in green/conservation criminology
• 4 An agenda for criminological investigation of crimes impacting primates
• 5 Using conservation criminology to explore the opportunity structures, obstacles, and deterrence of urban bushmeat traffi cking in Lékoumou District, Republic of the Congo
• 6 Human-wildlife competition: exploring human activities, environmental transformation, and mammalian species threat
• 7 A comparison of seizures of illegal wildlife between the US and the EU: implications for prevention
• 8 Examining factors predicting the use of wildlife killing by the US Fish and Wildlife Service across states
• 9 The ten-year (1999–2008) trend in hazardous waste violations and punishments in the United States from US EPA Resource Conservation and Recovery Act data
• 10 Waste crimes in Italy: an empirical exploration of their geographic distribution
• 11 Longitudinal methods for analyzing green crime
• 12 No longer Victorian children: understanding green victimization through an analysis of victim impact statements
• Index