Author(s): Đorđe M. Ignjatović / Language(s): Serbian
Issue: 1/2023
The paper dealt with only some of the key issues related to a new approach to criminal sciences – green criminology, which, after a little more than three decades since its first mention, is still in the search phase. Many things related to it are under question or the result of numerous controversies: from the very name, its philosophical theoretical framework, the subject of study and its systematics, the methodological apparatus, all the way to what human behaviors are studied, who are the perpetrators and victims, finally: how to control such acts. The article started from the fact that green criminology is an orientation in modern criminology that studies how people interact with the environment and what changes they cause in it. In other words, it deals with forms of endangerment and damage caused to the environment, behaviors that do not include only criminal acts, or even just illegal actions. Their perpetrators are primarily economic entities (companies), but also authorities i.e. their representatives and citizens who also contribute to the devastation of nature. Although we are all victims of such acts, members of minority communities, indigenous peoples and people who occupy lower positions on the social ladder feel the most of their consequences. The number of factors that cause ‘green crime’ is huge (as well as the type of acts that comprise it), but the most common are the race for profit, efforts to achieve economic development at any cost, corruption, but also insufficiently developed environmental awareness of citizens and personal traits and the status of the perpetrator. What causes particular concern is the ineffectiveness of control mechanisms for this form of crime, which is evident in all parts of the world. The operation of formal social control mechanisms cannot reduce such acts to levels that could be tolerated. The key reason for this is that the main actors who endanger the environment are precisely the allpowerful companies that often act together with the state authorities from which the judicial ones should sanction them. As with other issues in criminology, it has been shown that we are moving into an area dominated by issues of power, wealth and poverty. In other words – here is perhaps the most important question: who makes the laws and determines the boundaries of the criminal zone? It has been shown (especially on the example of the USA and the EU, which have the most developed environmental legislation) that it is not enough just to pass regulations – their content is more important. Environmental movements and their activism make a special contribution to opposing ‘green crime’ from subjects of informal control, while the influence of the public is much smaller because it reflects the image of environmental crime created by the media, which is often influenced by those who most seriously threaten the environment. After this not very optimistic picture, the question arises: what to do in a situation where a large number of criminologists claim that the generator of the most serious threats is precisely the logic on which modern capitalism rests: it is a combination of the unscrupulous race for profit, consumerism and the reduction of all things to commodities. This does not mean that those representatives of radical and anarchist criminology are right who see the way out in a revolution (each one ended with a change in places that carry privileges, amassing wealth and ruling over people). Instead of such upheavals, we should establish a harmonious relationship with the world around us (for this it is not necessary to invent some kind of “inalienable rights” of animals and nature). Such a relationship implies appreciating the need to preserve existing ecosystems, recognizing that there are values more important than the race for profit at any cost. This goal can be reached with gradual steps: – it is necessary to develop the environmental awareness of citizens; as its assumption, there is a need for media (traditional and new digital) to objectively present activities, as well as data on tendencies and consequences of environmental crimes; – they should get that data from science (both natural and social), whereby knowledge of green criminology is of key importance; – that knowledge should serve as a framework for an appropriate normative system that is the basis of responding to unacceptable acts, which will show the good sides of the bifurcation: for the most dangerous acts, such as ecocide, it is necessary to foresee the most severe sanctions and apply them consistently so that potential offenders understand that it does not pay off for them to perform them (hedonic calculation); it is also important to regulate the status issues of business entities in such a way that they cannot avoid responsibility by changing the status of the company (which is otherwise a common case now). For lighter crimes, the control authorities and the judiciary should have a whole series of measures, primarily of a financial nature, at their disposal; – in addition, it is necessary to develop new methods of confrontation, such as, for example, situational prevention based on the involvement of the local community; – when it comes to informal control, it is necessary to strengthen environmental movements and use media “blaming campaigns” of entities that threaten the environment. Finally, in this area too, it is necessary to separate myth from truth, waves of populism from consistent action. Because exaggerations and distortions of the real situation are observed here, in both directions: both the minimization of the real effects of environmental actions, and the dramatization campaigns based on (often fabricated) data. Their goal is to further strengthen the economic dominance of the most developed countries, which force the rest of the world to buy from them expensive technologies intended to “preserve nature”, while at the same time doing little to preserve the Planet that we all share, as its main polluters and culprits of climate change. It is important that we act sincerely and with dedication, instead of soothing our conscience by claiming that we have done everything we could.
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