ABSTRACT
When green criminologists have examined the problems of environmental exposure to toxic pollutants, they have limited their interpretation of this association by focusing on the negative public and environmental health outcomes related to exposure to toxic wastes. Yet, a significant literature in the medical and biological sciences indicates that exposure to environmental toxins can also change behavior. As criminologists, the implication that exposure to environmental toxins can change behavior can be employed to help explain factors that generate crime and affect its distribution. This chapter takes the suggested association between exposure to environmental toxins and behavioral changes in humans as an area ripe for investigation by green criminology. In order to draw greater attention to that particular issues, this chapter addresses what we call green behaviorism, which we define as that branch of green criminology that examines the relationship between exposure to environmental toxins and criminal behavior. 1
