Environmental Crime Midterm

What is Green Criminology?

• An approach to criminology that transcends strict legalist definitions of crime to study harms committed against humanity, the environment, and non-human animals by powerful institutions (states, corporations) as well as ordinary people.

Green Criminology Key Shift:

• Focuses on harm, rights, justice, and victimization rather than just statutory violations. It recognizes that much environmental destruction is technically legal or subject only to minor regulatory fines/administrative sanctions.

Social Construction of Crime:

• Acts defined as crimes are shaped by power relations, political processes, and social locations. The powerful often define what is legal/illegal, treating corporate environmental crime leniently while heavily policing the powerless.

Environmental Justice

Focuses on the fair distribution of access to environments/natural resources, human/social rights, intergenerational responsibility, and the combatting of environmental racism (where minority and indigenous communities

Ecological Justice:

• Recognizes that human dominance requires living in harmony with the environment and non-human entities/ecosystems.

Species Justice

• Argues that justice systems must consider the rights, welfare, and protection of non-human animals, moving away from viewing animals purely as property or economic commodities.

State-Corporate Crime:

• Refers to crimes that result from the relationship between state agencies and corporate entities (e.g., military-industrial complexes, nuclear weapons testing, government-sanctioned chemical dumping).

Capitalist Realism:

• The pervasive cultural and ideological belief that capitalism is the only viable economic system and that systemic problems (racism, materialism, militarism, environmental collapse) cannot be conquered—everything must be run like a business.

Capitalism as the Culprit:

• Critical scholars (like Huber and Klein) argue that technical fixes, political reforms, and individual lifestyle choices (e.g., buying electric cars, stopping meat consumption) are insufficient because the core driver of environmental crisis is capital accumulation and private ownership of production. Capitalism treats ecological destruction as mere "collateral damage."

Corporate Control:

• Major agricultural and chemical corporations (such as Monsanto/Bayer, Dow, DuPont, and Syngenta) control agriculture, media, and manipulate science, regulations, and public perception.

Glyphosate (Roundup):

Widely used pesticide linked to cancer. Corporations have suppressed dangers, utilized ghostwritten research, deceived regulators, and covered up health impacts while contaminating waterways, food supplies (e.g., Quaker Oats, Ben & Jerry’s), and human bodies (breast milk).

Rachel Carson & Silent Spring:

• A foundational figure who challenged chemicalization, pesticide abuse, and radioactive testing in the 1950s and 60s, sparking the modern environmental movement despite fierce corporate retaliation and smear campaigns.

Agent Orange:

• Used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War (produced by Monsanto, Dow, and DuPont) to strip ground cover and food sources. It poisoned millions of Vietnamese citizens and hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers, causing chromosomal damage and cancer (classified as a war crime and crime against humanity).

Nuclear Testing:

• U.S. nuclear weapons and energy production subjected test site workers, atomic veterans, and indigenous populations (such as in the Marshall Islands/Project 4.1) to severe radiation exposure under the guise of national security.

Local Toxic Disasters:

Tom’s River, NJ (1979/1985), Love Canal, NY (1977), Flint, Michigan

Flint, Michigan

• Lead-contaminated water infrastructure resulting from severe governmental and administrative failures, exposing children to dangerous lead levels.

Tom’s River, NJ (1979/1985):

• Ciba-Geigy chemical conspiracy involving illegal dumping of hazardous waste, doctored records, and cancer clusters.

Love Canal, NY (1977):

• Toxic chemicals killing residents while regulatory agencies remained short-staffed and indifferent.

The Link Between Animal Abuse and Violence:

• Green criminology links animal abuse and species exploitation to a broader culture of systemic violence. Treating animals strictly as property and inflicting mass suffering in factory farming normalizes oppression across society.

Wet Markets & Disease:

•  Unregulated wet markets combine wild and farmed animals in cramped, unhygienic conditions, serving as breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases (e.g., COVID-19).

Nonhuman Rights Project Inc. v. Lavery (2014):

The "Tommy the Chimp" case in the New York Supreme Court, where petitioners sought a writ of habeas corpus to grant legal personhood and liberty to a caged chimpanzee used in biomedical research, arguing that chimpanzees possess cognitive self-awareness and suffer in captivity.

The Animal Rights Movement:

Advocates push for strict regulations or bans on factory farming, vivisection, circuses, zoos, aquaria, and the use of animal skins/trophies.

Scale

Illegal wildlife trafficking is one of the largest illicit global commerce types (valued around $20 billion annually), trailing only behind drugs and weapons.

Contraband Types:

• Birds (parrots, hummingbirds), reptiles, mammals, rare timber, traditional Asian medicines (animal bones), and caviar.

The Symbiotic Relationship:

A major criminological finding is the deep overlap between the legal and illegal wildlife trades, where legal frameworks, permits, and re-export loops are exploited by organized crime and corrupt actors to launder poached wildlife.

Enforcement Challenges

• Wildlife law enforcement is predominantly reactive, under-resourced, and leniently sentenced.

• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and third-party groups play a critical investigative, policy, and scientific role in exposing environmental crimes when state agencies fail.

"Soft Law":

Most international environmental agreements lack robust enforceability and binding criminal penalties.

Ecocide

While international criminal law recognizes war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, widespread ecological destruction (ecocide) is largely omitted from international criminal courts, leaving resource extraction and ecosystem collapse governed primarily by civil or weak regulatory frameworks

Human Rights Intersection:

Environmental degradation directly violates fundamental human rights (e.g., safe drinking water, adequate standard of living, clean air). Corporate exploitation of oil, gas, and timber frequently infringes upon indigenous and community rights

Socio-Legal

Direct prosecution of statutory violations through formal legal channels

Regulatory

Reforming production/consumption via administrative rules and enforced self-regulation

Social Action

Driving structural change through citizen participation and direct action (e.g., tree-sits)

What distinguishes green criminology from traditional mainstream criminology?

Mainstream criminology focuses primarily on individual offenses codified by strict penal law, whereas green criminology studies structural harms against the environment, humans, and animals by powerful entities (corporations and states), even when those harms are legal or penalized only by administrative fines.

Explain the concept of "environmental racism" using examples from the course

Environmental racism refers to how minority and low-income communities disproportionately bear the burden of toxic pollution, hazardous waste dumping, and substandard infrastructure (such as lead pipes in Flint or chemical dumping grounds near vulnerable populations

How does Huber characterize the political economy of climate change?

Huber frames climate change as a "class war," arguing that fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions are driven by capitalist ownership and control over production. Solving the climate crisis requires confronting corporate power through mass working-class social movements rather than relying solely on individual consumer choices

What is the structural relationship between the legal and illegal wildlife trades?

They share a symbiotic relationship where legal trade channels, permits, and commercial markets provide cover, laundering mechanisms, and loopholes for smuggled, poached, and illegally trafficked wildlife products

Why do critical criminologists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with long-term environmental sustainability?

Because capitalism's foundational imperative is endless capital accumulation and growth, treating nature and ecosystems as external dumping grounds or infinite resources, rendering ecological destruction systemic rather than accidental