Green Crime (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

What is green crime?

• Green crime (also called environmental crime) refers to crime against the environment

• It is linked to globalisation and interconnectedness, because harm in one part of the world can have worldwide effects

• Green crime reduces the quality of human life and threatens the future of the planet

• Examples include:

  • deforestation

  • pollution

  • species extinction

  • toxic waste dumping

Green crime as a global crime

• Environmental harm does not respect national borders – it impacts the whole planet

  • E.g., atmospheric pollution in one country can turn into acid rain in another, damaging forests and ecosystems

• The Chernobyl disaster (1986) in Ukraine released radioactive fallout across Europe, showing how local events can have global consequences

• Globalisation also means wealthy countries exploit poorer ones by exporting toxic waste or using their land for dangerous industries

• South (2008) argues that both corporations and governments engage in harmful behaviour that damages the physical environment

• This threatens not just ecosystems but the long-term survival of humanity and the planet

Types of green crime

• South (2014) classifies green crimes into two types: primary and secondary

Primary green crimes

• These are crimes that directly damage the environment by destroying or degrading natural resources:

  • Air pollution: Burning fossil fuels from industry and transport adds carbon to the atmosphere and causes global warming

    • Air pollution caused 8.1 million deaths in 2021, making it the world’s second leading cause of death (The State of Global Air, 2024) (opens in a new tab)

  • Deforestation: Between 1960 and 1990, one-fifth of the world’s tropical rainforest was destroyed

    • In the Andes, the “war on drugs” involved spraying pesticides to kill coca and marijuana plants. This also destroyed food crops and contaminated drinking water, causing illness

  • Species decline and extinction: Around 50 species are lost daily. Illegal trafficking puts animals like rhinos and tigers at risk

    • Between 70-95% of all species live in rainforests, which are under severe threat. Traditional practices like badger-baiting are also on the rise

  • Water pollution: Industrial waste, oil spills and untreated sewage kill millions and harm marine life

    • Marine pollution now threatens 58% of the world's ocean reefs and 34% of its fish species

Secondary green crimes

• These crimes arise from breaking laws designed to protect the environment:

  • Hazardous waste dumping: Transnational corporations often dispose of toxic waste illegally in developing countries, where costs are lower

    • E.g., In 2006, the oil-trading company Trafigura dumped toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, causing widespread health problems (Amnesty International, 2016) (opens in a new tab)

  • State violence against oppositional groups: Governments may repress environmental protests, sometimes violently

    • E.g., in 2009, indigenous protesters in Bagua, Peru, blocked a highway to oppose laws allowing oil and mining in the Amazon. Police and military repression left dozens dead and many injured or arrested (Amnesty International, 2009) (opens in a new tab)

Radical criminology

• Radical criminologists such as White (2008) argue that countries cannot agree on what counts as green crime and that international law is weakly enforced

• There is no global agency powerful enough to police environmental harm

• Laws differ across countries and are often shaped by the economic interests of powerful transnational corporations

• Many governments, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), are reluctant to challenge global corporations because they depend on the income they generate through taxation

• Environmental disasters often have global consequences, crossing national borders

Explaining green crime

• White argues that 'green crime' should mean any deliberate harm to the environment or to living creatures (including humans), even if no law is technically broken

• This approach is called:

  • Zemiology: Focuses on harm rather than just legal definitions of crime

  • Transgressive criminology: Goes beyond the boundaries of traditional criminology

• Anthropocentric vs Ecocentric views:

  • Anthropocentric view: Nation states (e.g. China) and corporations often see environmental harm as a necessary cost of progress, required to maintain materialist lifestyles

  • Ecocentric view: Humans are part of nature and must respect the environment

• White argues that sociologists should take an ecocentric view, as environmental harm ultimately produces major harm for humanity itself

Globalisation and green crime

• Beck (2000) argues that modern societies face 'manufactured risks' – dangers created by human activity rather than natural causes

• Environmental threats such as global warming, climate change, and pollution result from the massive demand for consumer goods and the technologies that produce them

• These risks are global in impact and cannot be contained within national borders

• E.g., the Mozambique floods (2000) were made worse by climate change linked to global warming, showing how human activity can intensify natural disasters

Evaluation of green criminology

Strengths

• Recognises the importance of environmental issues

  • Green criminology highlights the serious impact of environmental harm on humans, animals, and the planet as a whole

  • It stresses the need to address environmental harms even when they are not legally recognised as crimes

• Highlights problems of law enforcement

  • The issue of illegal waste disposal shows the difficulty of policing environmental crime in a globalised world

  • Stricter laws in developed countries raise disposal costs, encouraging businesses to dump waste in LMICs, where legislation may be weak or absent

• Links global capitalism to inequality

  • Green criminology shows how global capitalism creates environmental harm and inequality by prioritising profit over safety

  • South (2014) describes this as 'environmental discrimination', where poorer communities are more likely to live near polluting industries, e.g. black communities in the USA

Criticisms

• Cannot be studied objectively

  • Green criminology is based on the idea of 'harm' rather than on legally defined crimes, which makes it difficult to study consistently

  • What counts as 'harm' is often depends on moral or political views, so the approach can appear subjective and open to bias

• Differences in law

  • Environmental laws vary widely between countries, meaning some actions may be legal in one place but criminal in another

  • This inconsistency makes cross-national comparisons difficult and highlights that statistics are socially constructed

• Anti-capitalist bias

  • Critics argue green criminology is too broad and overly anti-capitalist, as it often links environmental harm directly to the global capitalist system

  • This focus blurs the line between crime and politics, making it harder to set clear boundaries about what should count as a crime

• Victimless crimes

  • Many green crimes are seen as “victimless” because the environment or animals cannot report harm or hold offenders accountable

  • They are also difficult to detect and are often underreported, so they rarely appear in official crime statistics