ABSTRACT
Green criminology refers to the study of environmental harm by state and corporate actors, as well as individuals, and includes both specific incidents and events within defined geopolitical areas, and recurring patterns and phenomena of transboundary, transnational and global magnitude (see Carrabine et al. 2004; White 2008). Some green criminologists concentrate on state- and international-level environmental laws and regulations. These criminologists adopt what Halsey and White (1998: 345, 346) refer to as the ‘legal-procedural approach’, which ‘establishes the parameters of harm by referring to practices which are proscribed by law’ and that ‘privileges the criminal law in the definition of what constitutes serious social injury’. Other green criminologists contemplate environmental harm more broadly, challenging prevailing definitions and ideas of ‘harm’ by invoking notions of environmental morality, environmental ethics, and animal, ecological, or human rights (White 1998–1999; Beirne and South 2008). These criminologists employ the ‘socio-legal approach’ – one that ‘conceives harm in terms of damaging practices which may or may not be encapsulated under existing criminal law’ (Halsey and White 1998: 345). Thus, socio-legally-oriented green criminologists consider a wide range activities and practices that may be legal, but that are nonetheless environmentally destructive (see Brisman 2008).
