ABSTRACT
As noted in the previous chapter, green criminology is a means for studying problems related to environmental harm and crime, victimization, law, environmental justice, environmental regulation, and moral/philosophical issues as these issues relate to humans, non-human animals, plant species, and so on, and the ecosystem and its components (Benton, 1998; White, 2008a). Green criminology has largely emerged and been defined by the kinds of research that researchers identify as being green rather than as a theoretical concept (Lynch, 1990; Lynch and Stretesky, 2003; South, 1998). This approach to defining green criminology as “what green criminologists do” has both advantages and limitations. The advantages of this emergent properties approach to green criminology is that its subject matter is not confined by pre-existing ideas that may limit the kinds of academic advancements green researchers pursue. The limitation of this approach is that there is no clear theoretical or definitional consensus on green criminology which impedes describing that view and generating a concise explanation about the scope and mission of green criminology. This makes this view unlike other, more precisely defined criminological approaches.
