CITES, wild plants, and opportunities for crime

The illegal trade in endangered plants damages both the environment and local communities by threatening and destroying numerous species and important natural resources. There is very little research which systematically addresses this issue by identifying specific opportunities for crime. This article presents the results of an interdisciplinary study which brings together criminological and conservation science expertise to identify criminal opportunities in the illegal wild plant trade and suggest strategies in order to prevent and mitigate the problem. Methodologically, the study adapts a crime proofing of legislation approach to the UN Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and is based on documentary and interview data. Situational crime prevention is used as a framework to provide points for effective intervention

Green Criminology Before ‘Green Criminology’: Amnesia and Absences

Although the first published use of the term ‘green criminology’ seems to have been made by Lynch (Green criminology. Aldershot, Hampshire, 1990/2006), elements of the analysis and critique represented by the term were established well before this date. There is much criminological engagement with, and analysis of, environmental crime and harm that occurred prior to 1990 that deserves acknowledgement. In this article, we try to illuminate some of the antecedents of green criminology. Proceeding in this way allows us to learn from ‘absences’, i.e. knowledge that existed but has been forgotten. We conclude by referring to green criminology not as an exclusionary label or barrier but as a symbol that guides and inspires the direction of research

The employment of migrant nannies in the UK: negotiating social class in an open market for commoditised in-home care

Migrant women are important sources of labour in the commoditised in-home childcare sector in many regions of the UK. Jobs in this sector, which include nannies as well as au pairs, babysitters, housekeepers and mothers' helps, are often low paid and low status with pay and conditions being determined by employers' circumstances and whims. This article draws on primary data and secondary sources to illustrate the ways in which employers compare migrant nannies with British nannies and other childcare workers in terms of the social class and formal education levels of different groups, with the aim of explaining why migrants are perceived as high-quality candidates for what are often low-paid, low-status jobs. I argue that employers negotiate inter-class relations in this gendered form of employment by understanding their relationship with the migrant nannies they have employed in the context of broader global inequalities—these inequalities are then reproduced and reaffirmed in private homes and across UK culture and society

Geographies of landscape: Representation, power and meaning

Green criminology has sought to blur the nature-culture binary and this article seeks to extend recent work by geographers writing on landscape to further our understanding of the shifting contours of the divide. The article begins by setting out these different approaches, before addressing how dynamics of surveillance and conquest are embedded in landscape photography. It then describes how the ways we visualize the Earth were reconfigured with the emergence of photography in the 19th century and how the world itself has been transformed into a target in our global media culture

Creative Compliance, Constructive Compliance: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Criminal Entrepreneur

Purpose While corporations may embrace the concepts of social and environmental responsibility, numerous examples exist to show corporations claiming to act sustainably and responsibly, while simultaneously showing disregard for the communities in which they operate and causing considerable environmental damage. This chapter argues that such activities illustrate a particular notion of Baumol’s (1990) criminal entrepreneurialism where both creative and constructive compliance combine to subvert environmental regulation and its enforcement. Design/methodology/approach This chapter employs a case study approach assessing the current corporate environmental responsibility landscape against the reality of corporate environmental offending. Its case study shows seemingly repeated environmental 'offending' by Shell Oil against a backdrop of the company claiming to have integrated environmental monitoring and scrutiny into its operating procedures. Findings The chapter concludes that corporate assertion of environmental credentials is itself often a form of criminal entrepreneurship where corporations embrace voluntary codes of practice and self-regulation while internally promoting the drive for success and profitability and/or avoidance of the costs of true environmental compliance deemed too high. As a result this chapter argues that responsibility for environmental damage requires regulation to ensure corporate responsibility for environmental damage. Originality/value The chapter employs a green criminological perspective to its analysis of corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship. Thus it considers not just strict legal definitions of crime and criminal behaviour but also the overlap between the legal and the illegal and the preference of Governments to use administrative or civil penalties as tools to deal with corporate environmental offending