Expanding Criminology: Integrating Environmental Harm into Discourse and Practice

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-255-2_22How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Zemiology; Green Crimes; Bhopal Gas Tragedy; State-corporate crimes; Environmental Protection

Abstract

Environmental harm encompasses actions that have detrimental effects on the welfare of humans and other species, though not classified as criminal acts. As Lynch observes, instances of environmental harm and crimes exceed those of street crimes in terms of prevalence, impact on victims, and magnitude of damage, emphasising the urgency for their consideration within criminology discourse. (Lynch, 1990, p1). Brisman emphasises the critical importance of documenting these harms, noting significant social and economic repercussions. (Brisman, 2014).

Green and Ward, in their work, ‘State Crime, Human Rights, and the Limits of Criminology’, caution against expanding the definition of ‘crime’. They argue that broadening the scope of criminology would undermine the coherence of criminology as a distinct field of study (Green & Ward, 2004, pp. 961-963). They oppose the notion of including social harm under the broader category of ‘crime’, preventing the advancement of criminology towards Zemiology. This article delves into the persistent challenges of integrating the study of environmental harm and crime into the study of criminology. It assesses the impact of these issues on humans, animals, ecosystems and the biosphere (South & Beirne, 2006). Within this framework, the article considers whether criminologists should move beyond the traditional definition of crime and adopt Zemiological approaches to tackle environment degradation and state crimes, corporate crimes and state-corporate crimes that threaten fundamental human needs, rights and global well-being.

By examining the factors that lead to major disasters such as the Bhopal Gas tragedy and Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill, the article highlights the tangible consequences of state crime and corporate crime, suggesting recognition of “ecocide” as a grave international crime. It proposes that directing attention towards environmental losses due to state and corporate actions could pressure governments to enforce and implement stringent regulations.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Bhavya Tandon
AU  - Raushan Tara Jaswal
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/06/13
TI  - Expanding Criminology: Integrating Environmental Harm into Discourse and Practice
BT  - Proceedings of the NDIEAS-2024 International Symposium on New Dimensions and Ideas in Environmental Anthropology-2024 (NDIEAS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 260
EP  - 267
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-255-2_22
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-255-2_22
ID  - Tandon2024
ER  -