Green Crime and State Crime as Categories of Harm
Green crime and state crime extend the study of crime and deviance beyond conventional street crime to harms committed against the environment and by states themselves. South distinguishes primary green crimes, harm committed directly against the environment, such as illegal pollution or deforestation, from secondary green crimes, harm that arises from flouting environmental regulations, such as covering up illegal dumping or falsifying environmental compliance records. Green criminology also splits between an anthropocentric view, which sees environmental harm mainly in terms of its cost to humans, and an ecocentric view, which treats harm to the environment itself, and to non-human life, as worthy of concern regardless of the human cost. State crime is defined by Green and Ward as illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or with the complicity of, state agencies, and Chambliss's related concept of 'state-organised crime' describes acts that are themselves criminal but are carried out by state officials as part of their normal, sanctioned duties. McLaughlin's typology divides state crime into categories including political crimes (corruption, censorship), crimes by security and police forces (torture, genocide), economic crimes (violations of health and safety or environmental law by state bodies) and social/cultural crimes (institutional discrimination). Cohen argues states commonly use techniques of neutralisation, such as denial that an event occurred, denial of responsibility, or denial that the victims deserve sympathy, to justify or excuse human rights abuses and other state crimes.
Before you start
Make sure you're comfortable with these topics first:
Method
- Treat green crime and state crime as two related but distinct categories, both chosen because they fall outside the scope of conventional, individual street crime that most criminology focuses on, and structure the answer accordingly rather than blending them.
- Define South's primary/secondary green crime distinction precisely with a clear example of each: primary is the direct environmental harm itself (e.g. illegal dumping of toxic waste); secondary is harm arising from flouting the rules meant to prevent or punish that harm (e.g. falsifying inspection records to hide the dumping).
- Explain the anthropocentric/ecocentric distinction as a values question underlying green criminology: anthropocentric criminology asks what environmental harm costs humans, ecocentric criminology asks what is owed to the environment and non-human life in its own right, and this affects which acts get treated as 'crimes' worth studying at all.
- Define state crime using Green and Ward's definition precisely: illegal or deviant acts committed by, or with the complicity of, state agencies, which matters because it includes acts a state may never formally prosecute, since the state itself controls law enforcement.
- Use McLaughlin's typology to show state crime is not one single thing: distinguish political crimes, crimes by security/police forces, economic crimes, and social/cultural crimes, each with a different mechanism and a different kind of victim.
- Explain Cohen's techniques of neutralisation as the mechanism by which states justify or minimise their own crimes to domestic and international audiences: denial of the act, denial of responsibility, and denial of the victim's legitimacy are distinct strategies that can operate together.
- If the item describes a specific environmental harm or state action, identify precisely which category (primary/secondary green crime, or which type in McLaughlin's typology) it illustrates before generalising.
- For an evaluative answer, note the core difficulty both categories share: conventional criminology, built around individual offenders breaking laws that the state itself defines and enforces, struggles to study harms where the state is the offender or where the 'crime' (large-scale environmental damage) is not always illegal under existing law.
Worked example
Item A: An industrial company was found to have illegally discharged toxic chemicals into a river for several years, and internal documents later showed managers had also falsified environmental compliance reports submitted to regulators during that period, to avoid detection. Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, analyse two green crimes illustrated in the item. (10 marks)
- Identify the two separate acts in the item: the illegal chemical discharge itself, and the falsification of compliance reports submitted to regulators.
- Crime 1: the toxic discharge is a primary green crime, direct harm committed against the environment (the river), matching South's definition precisely.
- Develop crime 1 by naming the type of harm: pollution of a shared natural resource, which an ecocentric green criminologist would treat as a serious harm in its own right, while an anthropocentric criminologist would emphasise the harm to people relying on the river.
- Crime 2: falsifying compliance reports is a secondary green crime, since it arises from flouting the regulatory system meant to detect and prevent the primary harm, rather than being the environmental harm itself.
- Add a brief link: secondary green crimes like this often make primary green crimes harder to detect and punish, since regulators rely on the honesty of the reports they are given.
- Check both crimes are correctly labelled primary and secondary using the item's two distinct acts, not treated as one combined offence.
Practice questions
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Q1What is the difference between a primary and a secondary green crime, according to South?Show answer
Answer: A primary green crime is direct harm committed against the environment, such as illegal pollution; a secondary green crime arises from flouting the rules and regulations meant to prevent or expose that harm, such as falsifying compliance records.
Q2Explain the difference between an anthropocentric and an ecocentric view in green criminology.Show answer
Answer: An anthropocentric view assesses environmental harm mainly by its cost to humans; an ecocentric view treats harm to the environment and non-human life as worthy of concern in its own right, regardless of the human cost.
Q3How do Green and Ward define state crime?Show answer
Answer: Illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by, or carried out with the complicity of, state agencies.
Q4What does Chambliss mean by 'state-organised crime'?Show answer
Answer: Acts that are themselves criminal but are carried out by state officials as part of their normal, sanctioned duties, rather than as personal or unofficial wrongdoing.
Q5Give two categories from McLaughlin's typology of state crime.Show answer
Answer: For example, political crimes (such as corruption or censorship) and crimes by security and police forces (such as torture).
Q6Name one of Cohen's techniques of neutralisation states use to justify human rights abuses.Show answer
Answer: Denial that the event occurred, denial of responsibility for it, or denial that the victims deserve sympathy.
Exam-style questions
Written in the style of a A Level Sociology exam paper, with a full mark scheme.
Outline two ways sociologists define green crime.
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Item B: Investigators found that a government agency had covered up evidence that its own security forces had used excessive and unlawful force against protesters, issuing public statements denying the events had taken place and later suggesting any injuries were the protesters' own fault. Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, analyse two ways the item illustrates the concept of state crime. (10 marks)
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Item C: A state-owned company was found to have discharged pollutants illegally over several years, and when journalists investigated, officials from the same government that owned the company issued statements dismissing the reports as exaggerated and denying any wrongdoing had occurred. Applying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of green crime and state crime. (30 marks)
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