Green Harms and Crimes

Critical Criminology in a Changing World

R. Sollund

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137456267
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The book presents discussions of the application of Stan Cohen's theories alongside empirical contributions in the fields of critical and green criminology. Taken together, the authors critically address harms and crimes against the environment, as well as against human and nonhuman victims.

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Introduction: Critical Green Criminology – An Agenda for Change

Ragnhild Aslaug Sollund

The role of critical green criminology

This book is the outcome of the conference of the European Group (EG) for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, which was hosted by the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, Norway, in September 2013. The event marked the 40th anniversary of this important criminology group, which for over four decades has influenced European and international criminology, and not the least what is usually referred to as ‘critical criminology’ – a field of criminology which arose as a criticism of the ways in which (mainstream, positivist North American) criminology was a vehicle and support to the judicial system and punishment apparatus. This is also part of the history of the Institute for Criminology and Sociology of Law in Oslo, which was first established as the Institute of Criminology and Penal Law 60 years ago.

The EG was funded and held its first conference in Italy in 1973 on the theme of ‘Deviance and Social Control in Europe: Scope and Prospects for a Radical Criminology’ (EG website).¹ Well-known critical criminologists, such as Stan Cohen, Vincenzo Ruggiero, Jock Young, Nils Christie, Louk Hulsman, Barbara Hudson and Thomas Mathiesen, were present at this conference and/or have been present at other EG conferences over the years for shorter or longer periods of time, and they have influenced and continue to influence critical criminology. The aim of the foundation of the group by Stan Cohen, Mario Simondi and Karl Shumann was not just to cover topics and hold debates which would otherwise be marginalized or ignored by mainstream, administrative and official criminology, but to establish a new network that could support and provide solidarity with emerging social movements (EG website). The foci of the group were, and remain today, on the construction of harm (e.g. Hillyard et al., 2004; Hillyard and Tombs, 2007), the construction of crime (e.g. Christie, 1994) and a commitment to social justice, to explore how deviance is socially constructed and controlled (e.g. Scraton, 2007), not the least in, through and beyond the judicial and prison systems (Hulsman, 1986; Mathiesen, 2014; Hallsworth, 2000).

The group has always been solidary with those who are oppressed and has maintained a strong focus on gender – for example, women as victims (Leander, 2006), offenders and prisoners (McMahon, 1999). Very often the group meeting at the conference’s final day has included writing and agreeing on a resolution in someone’s support, and often in conflict zones – for example, Crossmaglen in Northern Ireland or in Cyprus where conferences have been arranged.

The role of critical criminology

Political activism has been central to the history of the EG, and the link between political activism and critical criminology remains strong. This is also the case in the present book, which has been produced by contributors to the stream ‘green criminology and political activism’ at the EG 2013 conference in Oslo.

The divide between mainstream criminology and (critical) green criminology persists today and, according to Lynch and Stretesky (2014), it is rooted in the tendencies of mainstream criminology to (still) ‘exclude a diverse range of topics relevant to studying harms and their consequences that ought otherwise to fit within the discipline of criminology if criminology were not so narrowly defined in the first place’ (2014: 4).

The role of critical criminology, or radical criminology (Lynch and Stretesky, 2014), is not merely to describe and analyse the crimes and harms that are committed by the powerful, whether states (e.g. Cohen, 2001), corporations (Pearce and Tombs, 2009), penal systems (Christie, 2007; Hulsman, 1991; Mathiesen, 1967) or the capitalist system (Stretesky et al., 2013). The aim is to change the current world order by rejecting capitalism and consumerism as the leading values of our time, by rejecting the unfair distribution of wealth and power, by rejecting the criminalization of the powerless, and by rejecting the exploitation of those who cannot defend themselves and those whom the police and judicial systems fail to protect.

Green critical criminology

As shown by South (2014), green criminology arose as a field when researchers more or less simultaneously at different places on earth developed the same concern about environmental harms and crimes (see also Lynch and Stretesky, 2014: 3). Although Michael Lynch’s (1990) ‘The greening of criminology’ is often referred to as a starting point for the field, many were not made aware of this article. Research on environmental crime had been going on for example in Norway, regarding pollution at sea (Christophersen and Johansen, 1991), and elsewhere corporate environmental crime (Pearce and Tombs, 2009), although this work was not clearly defined as belonging to any specific field of criminology apart from being critical criminology. But as South says,

in an important sense, a green criminology is justified because it was inevitable and necessary. It reflected scientific interests and political challenges of the moment, carried forward the momentum of critical non-conformist criminology, and offered a point of contact and convergence.

(2014: 8)

The umbrella under which green criminology topics are gathered is wide, and according to Beirne and South (2007), it includes ‘the study of those harms against humanity, against the environment including space, and against nonhuman animals committed both by powerful institutions (e.g. governments, transnational corporations, military apparatuses) and also by ordinary people’ (2007: xiii). Researching what is legally understood as crimes – breaches of law – has therefore been expanded to include studies of harm, and the concept of crime is conceptually changed to encompass even those harmful acts which are actually not crime, legally defined, but yet are as harmful as any act which is actually a breach of a law or regulation (Beirne and South, 2007; Sollund, 2008; Walters, 2010; White, 2007, 2013: 8; Stretesky et al., 2013; Lynch and Stretesky, 2014; Hillyard et al., 2004; South, 2008), whether as part of daily practices (Agnew, 2013) or even when instigated by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (O’Brien, 2008). This marks a clear distinction with conventional criminology with its focus primarily on (only) those acts which are criminalized, crime prevention, offenders and punishment.

An important issue is thus also the area in between legal and illegal crimes – the justifications for criminalizing some acts and not others, for punishing some and not others, even when the acts/crimes that have been committed are qualitatively the same, and correspondingly in regarding some as ‘justified’ victims and not others (Sollund, 2012b). Given the impact of political activism on green criminology, an important part of the field is to show who the victims of environmental harms are, and to propose policy implications ‘which would “work” legally speaking as well as being conceptually robust’ (Hall, 2014: 99).

There is as such no divide between critical criminology in its original form in the way it was first set out – for example, in the birth of the EG – and green, eco-global criminology (White, 2011). Green criminology is a natural and necessary prolongation and expansion of critical criminology (Sollund, 2014; South, 2014) in a world that faces even greater problems now than it did in the 1970s as a consequence of the capitalist order, in which colonialism cannot be talked about in a past tense; it has merely changed its form. It is no longer Western states which ‘own’ the colonial states – they are in practice to a large degree often ‘owned’ by large corporations, and these corporations have no other purpose than to increase the wealth of their owners at the cost of the inhabitants of these previous colonies, and by harming indigenous peoples whether in Greenland (Myrup, 2012), Canada, Nigeria (Zalik, 2010), Colombia (Mol, 2013) or Ecuador (Sollund, 2012) – for example, by the dumping of toxic waste (Bisschop and Walle, 2013; White, 2008).

Green criminology cannot be claimed to be a unitary field as there are today degrees of how critical (radical) the writers appear to be, and the ways in which this reflect their research agendas. Further, the interests of criminologists who are writing within a critical tradition about green (e.g. Beirne and South, 2007), eco-global (White, 2011; Ellefsen et al., 2012) topics are as diverse as are criminologists.

White (2013) categorizes the different branches of green criminology as radical green criminology (e.g. Stretesky et al., 2013; Lynch and Stretesky, 2014), eco-global criminology (White, 2011, 2012), conservation criminology (Gibbs et al., 2010), environmental criminology (Wellsmith, 2010; Hill, Chapter 10), constructivist green criminology (Brisman, 2012) and speciesist criminology² (e.g. Beirne, 2009; White, 2013a: 23–24). And one could add historical criminology (Beirne, 1994, 2009; Ystehede, 2012) and green cultural criminology (Ferrell, 2013; Brisman and South, 2014), to which I will return.

One question arises: What might unite all of these branches of green; what do they have in common? The development into different fields of green criminology suggests that not all authors with their different fields of interest and research agendas will agree on perspectives, for example, in eco-justice and species justice (Halsey, 2004). A conventional (conservationist) criminologist could, for example, focus on illegal wildlife trafficking, the main problem being that animals are taken in violation of laws or regulations; thus the discussion would circulate around how to prevent this as a (and because it is a) crime rather than as a harm (Pires and Clark, 2012; Warchol et al., 2004). Such a perspective would be regarded as too narrow for a radical, anti-anthropocentric, criminologist who would refer to such acts as crimes either way and be equally concerned about those who are killed or abducted legally as those who are abducted and killed illegally (Rodriguez Goyes, Chapter 9; Sollund, 2011).

As South points out (1998, also see White, 2013b), green criminology provides no theory which can unify the field. This could by some be regarded as a deficiency. However, to believe that one grand theory could possibly unite all aspects of this rich field would probably undermine its content because it would necessarily have to cover contradicting interests and perspectives – for example, those which can be implicit in environmental rights versus species justice. The strength of green criminology is, according to Avi Brisman, its inclusion of a broad set of interpretations, explanations and predictions, and in this way the scope of green criminology is broader, its potential greater and its significance far more profound (Brisman, 2014: 24). As observed by Brisman, green criminologists do not come to the field without previous experience or theoretical baggage, and they have an array of theories to pick from in their analyses. One thing that many green criminologists further have in common, at least those who position themselves within critical green criminology, is an insistent awareness of exploitative relationships and injustice (Wyatt et al., 2014).

One of the advantages of critical green criminology is also its multidisciplinary approaches (e.g. Gibbs et al., 2010): while often leaning on the natural sciences for empirical evidence about environmental harms (and crimes) (e.g. Stretesky et al., 2013; Lynch and Stretesky, 2014), it also encompasses numerous perspectives from the social sciences as well as philosophy (e.g. Beirne, 1999), thus enriching the analyses (e.g. Sollund, 2008; Ellefsen et al., 2012).

Justice is strongly present in ‘the green criminology ideology’ if one can speak of such in a unitary way. As White states, ‘The green criminology perspective (therefore) tends to begin with a strong sensitivity towards crimes of the powerful and to be infused with issues pertaining to power, justice, inequality and democracy’ (2103: 22).

Green critical criminology: Contested field(s)?

Not all critical criminologists, such as Stan Cohen to whom this book is a tribute (in particular, see Brisman and South, Chapter 2; Morrison, Chapter 3), would agree that a critical criminologist should engage herself in environmental problems and animal abuse. Cohen (2001: 289), like many others, asked:³ ‘Why should we occupy ourselves with such issues – in criminology – when there are so many abuses of human rights?’

The answer is simple: we do not have to choose; we can do both. It is possible to write about, to criticize and to engage in the various sides of exploitation and abuse no matter whether the victims are women, men, non-humans or the environment itself, hence focusing on all aspects of justice – eco-, species and environmental or atmospheric (Walters, 2013) – while discussing openly in which ways these are contradicting, which should be given priority (if any) and why.

It is quite well established that the different forms of ‘isms’ – sexism, racism, speciesism and so on – are shaped by the same patterns of discrimination and prejudice (Donovan and Adams, 1996; Cazaux, 1999). Therefore studying one form of abuse sheds light on how to understand another, and those oppressed by such ‘isms’ have the same right to concern, and in being recognized as victims, whether women who are victims of violence and abuse (e.g. Leander, 2006), human environmental victims (Natali, Chapter 4) or animal victims (Agnew, 1998; Beirne, 1999; Sollund, 2012b, 2013).

A critical radical criminology requires a critical victimology. There is considerable conceptual overlap between green criminology, with its focus on harm against the environment and non-human animals, and victimology, through its foci on interrogating and critically understanding the perpetration and aftermath of crime more generally. For a radical critical criminology it is crucial with a critical and reflective approach to understanding conceptualizations of victims and victimhood, such as how these are contested, and culturally and historically specific (Fitzgerald, 2010: 132,134).

Despite Cohen’s apparent resistance to including non-human animal victims among those who deserve to be an object of study, thus including the mechanisms which cause them victimization – as much as the mechanisms which cause human victimization – his theories are at least as applicable within the field of critical green criminology as they are in more ‘conventional’ critical criminology (Brisman and South, Chapter 2). These include particularly his theories about denial (Cohen, 2001) – for example, with regard to analyses of responses to climate change,⁴ and harm more generally, including animal harm.

Concerning environmental crime/harm, I think it is easier to gain support for this to be a legitimate part of criminology today – and to be accepted as criminology, even when it is not related to the breach of a law or regulation – than when green criminology was in its infancy. The question has been raised: Is this criminology (e.g. O’Brien, 2008)? I think this question no longer needs to be asked, as observed by Walters et al. (2013: 12). Of course this is criminology, and the myriad of green criminology books which have been published over the past decade, plus the presence of green criminology panels at criminology conferences, including a presidential panel at the American Society of Criminology (ASC)⁵

conference in 2013, clearly document the strength of this expanding field.

An...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Critical Green Criminology – An Agenda for Change
• 2. Corporate Environmental Harms and Paradoxical Interventions: Thoughts in Honour of Stanley Cohen
• 3. Looking into the Abyss: Bangladesh, Critical Criminology and Globalization
• 4. A Critical Gaze on Environmental Victimization
• 5. Creative Destruction’ and the Economy of Waste
• 6. Agribusiness, Governments and Food Crime: A Critical Perspective
• 7. Anthropogenic Development Drives Species to Be Endangered: Capitalism and the Decline of Species
• 8. The Illegal Wildlife Trade from a Norwegian Outlook: Tendencies in Practices and Law Enforcement
• 9. Denying the Harms of Animal Abductions for Biomedical Research
• 10. A Systems Thinking Perspective on the Motivations and Mechanisms That Drive Wildlife Poaching
• 11. ‘Now You See Me, Now You Don’t’: About the Selective Permissiveness of Synoptic Exposure and Its Impact
• 12. The Occupy Movement vs. Capitalist Realism: Seeking Extraordinary Transformations in Consciousness
• 13. Refugee Protests and Political Agency: Framing Dissensus through Precarity
• Index