Green criminology and the reconceptualization of school violence: Comparing green school violence and traditional forms of school violence for school children

School crime and violence continue to be important topics of criminological inquiry. Forms of violence that have received much attention from criminologists include school gun violence, assaults, and bullying. What appears missing from criminological studies are analyses of different forms of violent victimization imposed on school children related to environmental injustice, pollution, and exposure to toxins. In this article, we argue for the interpretation of these harms as violent victimizations. To facilitate this, we draw upon definitions of violent victimization developed in green criminology, conceptualizing exposure to environmental toxins as violent assault, and introduce the term green school violence (GSV). Next, we draw upon the medical, environmental, and public health literature to offer a series of examples of GSV in the United States, discuss numerous environmental hazards present in American schools, and describe their scope and severity. A conservative estimate of the frequency of GSV suggests that far more school children are victimized by GSV than forms of interpersonal acts of violence

State and green crimes related to water pollution and ecological disorganization: water pollution from publicly owned treatment works (POTW) facilities across US states

Green criminologists often refer to water pollution as an example of a green crime, but have yet to produce much research on this subject. The current article addresses the need for green criminological analyses of water pollution problems, and draws attention to an overlooked issue: water pollution emissions from state owned public water treatment facilities or POTWs. Legally, POTWs may emit certain quantities and kinds of pollutants to waterways following treatment. This does not mean, however, that those emissions have no adverse ecological or public health impacts, or that those emissions cannot also be employed as examples of green crimes or green-state crimes. Indeed, from the perspective of environmental sociology and ecological Marxism, those emissions generate ecological disorganization. Moreover, POTW emissions contain numerous pollutants that generate different forms of ecological disorganization. The current study uses POTW emissions data drawn from the US EPA’s Discharge Monitoring Report system for 2014 to illustrate the extent of pollution emitted by POTWs in and across US states as one dimension of ecological disorganization. To contextualize the meaning of those data, we review US water pollution regulations, review the health and ecological impacts of chemicals emitted by POTWs, and situate those emissions within green criminological discussions of green crime and green-state crimes

Smell the Death, Hear the Cries: Green Victimization and Radical-Green Criminology in the ERA of Global Environmental Collapse

Over the past three decades scientific evidence has accumulated concerning the deleterious impacts humans have on local and global ecosystems (Akimoto, 2003; Ballschmiter and Zell, 1980; Nriagu, 1989; Tanabe, 1983). While much has been written about these issues in the scientific literature, the implications of accelerating global ecological decline is not widely explored in the criminological literature. In general, criminologists fail to conceptualize ecological harms as crimes despite the existence of numerous national and international environmental mechanisms of social control that address ecological harm and destruction. Criminological neglect of green crimes has also meant a neglect of green victimization. Green victimization is extensive and ubiquitous in the contemporary world, and we suggest, makes green victimization more likely than street crime victimization, a point illustrated below. These green victims are under-represented in the criminological literature, leading to under-estimates of the rates of victimization in society. We also call attention to explaining those forms of green victimization employing political economic theory.3 Our analysis of green victimization proposes a radical approach that employs political economic theory (Part I, IV and V). Parts II and III of our discussion provide evidence of the scope of green victimization in several different forms

Blaming the Poor for Biodiversity Loss: A Political Economic Critique of the Study of Poaching and Wildlife Trafficking

Biodiversity has become a topic of study in a variety of disciplines. Within criminology the study of biodiversity loss is often emphasized in the poaching literature. However, an alternative perspective on the political economy of biodiversity loss exists within criminology. While both approaches to biodiversity provide important information for the discipline of criminology, the implications of those approaches have very different implications for environmental discourse related to poverty and social justice. We suggest that poaching studies be viewed with caution as there is a possibility that those studies can be used to ‘blame the poor’ for biodiversity loss

Carbon Crime in the Voluntary Market: An exploration of modernization themes among a sample of criminal and non-criminal oganizations

The international voluntary carbon market allows economic actors to profit financially by selling carbon reduction projects (as carbon credits) in the marketplace. The objective of this work is to examine the ideology of that market and its implications for crime and climate change. More specifically, we compare advertising messages for two sets of actors in the voluntary carbon market: criminal and non-criminal organizations. To carry out this analysis we draw upon a grounded theory approach to analyze marketing websites for a sample of organizations that sell credits. We discover that overall, organizations draw upon ecological modernization ideology to provide opportunities to gain access to investors and victims by emphasizing (1) sustainability; (2) ethical behaviour; (3) economic development; and, (4) technological innovation. Importantly, statistical analyses failed to differentiate between the forms of modernization ideology employed by legal and illegal actors

Trends in the formation of environmental enforcement international non-governmental organizations, 1950 to 2010

Recent research highlights the importance of non-governmental organizations in environmental enforcement. These studies largely describe the operations of enforcement organizations locally. The present study offers an alternative perspective by considering environmental enforcement by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). We employ the treadmill of production thesis to investigate the formation of environmental enforcement INGOs between 1950 and 2010. Prais–Winsten estimation techniques are used to investigate whether the formation of environmental enforcement INGOs is correlated with the global ecological footprint, gross world product, and/or organization density. Results confirm that there is no correlation between the ecological footprint and INGO formation. There is, however, considerable evidence of an inverted-U association between density and founding (p < .05). This discovery is important because it provides strong empirical support for the hypothesis that the global environmental enforcement culture is shaped by competitive neoliberal tendencies

A Perspective on the Historical Analysis of Race and Treatment Storage and Disposal Facilities in the United States

Studies of environmental injustice have been intensely scrutinized by social science researchers since the publication of the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice report entitled Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States in 1987. Importantly, there has been an emphasis on analysing longitudinal data to answer the question 'which came first, people or pollution?' In addition, determining where environmental hazards are located and how demographics around those hazards are estimated has become central to any empirical enquiry on the topic. This new letter by Mohai and Saha (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 115008) adds to our emerging understanding of environmental justice by analysing the distribution of Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facilities across the United States to determine why they are concentrated in non-white and low income neighbourhoods. The researchers clearly demonstrate how longitudinal analysis and advances in geographic information system methodology can help address meaningful social questions about environmental inequality that are central to environmental policy and practice

A cross-national study of the association between natural resource rents and homicide rates, 2000-2012

Countries that rely on natural resource rents (that is, the revenue generated from the sale of natural resources) may suffer from a variety of social problems. This exploratory study reviews the natural resource extraction literature to derive a ‘natural resource rents–homicide’ hypothesis. Data for 173 countries for the years 2000 to 2012 are examined to determine if there is a correlation between natural resource rents and homicide rates. Multilevel growth models suggest that natural resource rents are positively correlated with homicide rates within countries (level 1) but not between them (level 2). Importantly, the correlation between natural resource rents and homicide is strongest when natural resource rents are lagged. We conclude by suggesting that increasing natural resource rents may be counterproductive over the long run and sow the seeds for a future increase in homicide

The Great Recession, the Treadmill of Production and Ecological Disorganization: Did the Recession Decrease Toxic Releases Across US States, 2005–2014?

The treadmill of production, ecological Marxist, steady-state economics and the natural science literatures suggest that economic growth and pollution are linked. We use the economic downturn resulting from the Great Recession in 2008–2009 as a natural experiment to test this hypothesis. Specifically, we examine the effect of the Great Recession on pollution measured by the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) using maps and fixed-effects regression models for US states for the period 2005–2014. Multivariate time-series analysis demonstrates that even when adjusting for controls there is a unique and negative effect of the recession on TRI levels. We situate our findings in the relevant literature, suggest possibilities for what the recession effect may be capturing, and discuss some implications of increased pollution levels

Does the modernization of environmental enforcement reduce toxic releases? An examination of self-policing, criminal prosecutions and toxic releases in the United States, 1988–2014

According to modernization theory, enforcement schemes that rely on end-of-the-pipe regulation are not as effective at achieving improved environmental performance as market-based approaches that encourage pollution prevention. Consistent with that observation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency transitioned to the use of self-policing to encourage pollution prevention. Other studies note that environmental compliance is significantly affected by traditional “command-and-control” strategies. Using Prais Winston regression we examine these contrasting views by estimating the relationship between toxic releases, self-policing, and criminal prosecutions from 1988 through 2014. Initial correlations suggest that (1) self-policing is not associated with toxic releases but that (2) criminal prosecutions may reduce toxic releases through general deterrence signals. Subsequent analyses controlling for gross domestic product revealed that neither self-policing nor criminal enforcement correlate with toxic releases but that gross domestic product was the strongest predictor of emissions. The implications of these findings for the control of toxic emissions are discussed