Green Criminology

Summary

Since 1990, green criminology has grown as a subdiscipline of criminology to the extent that it consists of its own vocabulary, subspecialties, and perspectives. Green criminology emerged as an outgrowth of radical/Marxist criminology, which underscores the primary role of capitalism in the generation of ecological harm and destruction. Yet since the term “green criminology” was coined, green criminologists with diverse experiences, skills and training, and world views have expanded the focus of the field by investigating, among other topics, the exploitative nature and harmful outcomes of relationships between humans and nonhuman animals, the cultural underpinnings of environmental crimes and harm, and the causes and outcomes of neocolonial relationships that threaten the biodiversity and sustainability of ecosystems across the planet. Accordingly, green criminology consists of several strands of literature—political economic green criminology, non-speciesist criminology, conservation criminology, eco-global criminology, green-cultural criminology, and southern green criminology—with many promising research avenues (e.g., carceral environmental [in]justice, anthropogenic infectious diseases and nonhuman species, ecocide) deserving of increased recognition. Importantly, these developments indicate the continued maturation of green criminology that cut across the aforementioned strands of scholarship as researchers aim to better understand and address complex environmental issues.