Palgrave Studies in Green Criminology

This edited collection is grounded in a green criminological approach to understand whether the law, both in effect and implications, reflects, refracts, or sublimates the social, political and ecological conditions of our times. Since its initial proposal in the 1990s, green criminology has focused the criminological gaze on a wide array of harms and crimes affecting humans, animals other than humans, ecological systems, and the planet as a whole. As a continuously blossoming field of criminological inquiry, green criminology recognizes and examines behaviours that are both illegal and legal (yet detrimental), and in varying ways has made great efforts to provide insight into harms in a more fulsome manner. At the same time, there have been many significant legal instances, domestic, and international, including case law, legislation, regulation, treaties, agreements and executive directives which have troubled the law’s understanding of green harms, illegal and legal activity, pushing legal boundaries in the process. Recognizing that humanity and nature are inextricably integrated, Green Criminology and the Law reflects the range and depth of high-quality research and scholarship, combining contributions from established scholars willing to explore new topics and recent entrants who are breaking new scholarly ground.

This accessible book provides the first comprehensive analysis of environmental crime victims within criminal prosecutions in the United States. By combining empirical analysis of criminal investigations undertaken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1983-2022 with narrative discussion of numerous related criminal prosecutions, it provides novel insights to help advance a stronger empirical understanding of how the administrative state protects victims of environmental harm, punishes environmental offenders, and aids in furthering the development of an environmental victimology.

In recent decades, environmental crime has become one of the largest criminal activities in the world with disastrous impacts on the environment, and enormous costs for future generations. The environmental impact is illustrated by the rapid disappearance of rainforests, large-scale pollution, climate change, and the mass extinction of species. Environmental crime has become a global issue, and thus needs to be anticipated in social and scientific thinking. The studies of green criminology, environmental sociology, environmental law, political ecology, and conservation studies, among other disciplines, are increasingly engaged with crimes and harms against the environment. Bringing together and combining these approaches in this edited volume is crucial to understand and reflect on the environmental challenges that we face in the 21st century.