Crime and Deviance: Globalisation & Green Crime

Green crime….

• ‘Crime against the environment’: can be linked to globalisation & growing interconnectedness of countries

  • Ivory trade: killing of elephants/rhinos → globalisation = demand for ivory products, interconnectedness has made distribution all over the world easier , increased killing of animals to meet the demand

  • Bhopal: links to increased pressure for profits due to global capitalism → Union Carbide built the factory in Bhopal because of less strict health and safety laws/low wages for profit → caused MIC gas leak

• Despite division of the world into states, the planet is a single ecosystem → threats are global not local

  • Industrial pollution: in one country can turn into acid rain that falls in another

  • Chernobyl: Ukraine = spread radioactive material over thousands of miles (no adequate safety procedures)

Primary green crime…

• Crimes that result directly from the destruction and degradation of earth’s resources (criminal behaviour that impacts the environment) → South: air pollution (burning fossil fuels that adds 3 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere per year) , deforestation, crimes to animal species, water pollution (half a billion people lack access to drinking water → includes businesses dumping toxic waste and governments discharging untreated sewage into rivers/seas)

  • Examples: demand for palm oil = deforestation, Bhopal = air pollution, Ivory trade = animal species

  • Evaluation: Consumers can also create a market for primary green crime, not just large corporations → products such as shoes/handbags made from caiman alligator in Italy → death of 1 million animals per year for fashion → consumers PUSH producers

Secondary green crime…

• Crime that is created out of states flouting rules aimed at preventing/regulating environmental disasters

  • Examples: Violence against oppositional groups, 1985 French secret service blew up the Greenpeace ship in New Zealand (killing a crew member) → vessel was there to stop French nuclear weapons testing in the South Pacific, all those that oppose are treated like an enemy of the state

  • Hazardous waste & organised crime: Ecomafias → disposal of toxic waste is highly profitable/ is expensive → companies look for illegal means, Italian mafia provide illegal dumping services at sea

  • Evaluation: useful in explaining why green crime can happen → states not only construct their own law BUT also act with violence against those trying to protect law

Globalisation as a cause for states to commit green crime…

• Environmental law + global market forces → illegal toxic dumping in third world countries. A tightening of regulations in relation to dumping toxic waste has created a global market for illegal toxic dumping → pressure for profits → using the eco mafia: legit = 2,500 dollars per ton, some 3rd world = 3 dollars a ton → after 2004 tsunami hundreds of barrels of radioactive waste washed up on the shores of Somalia

  • Strength: useful in illustrating the problems of environmental law trying to be imposed in a globalized world → existence of regulation on waste disposal pushes up costs & encourages an incentive to dump illegally

Globalisation & risk society as an explanation…