Should we treat environmental crimes like murder? | environment

WWhenever you read, watch or listen to the news, you are likely to be exposed to stories of violence and murder. As a forensic psychologist, I am often asked to comment on these cases to discern the motives of the perpetrators. People want these kinds of visions because murders seem frightening and terrifying, but they’re also strangely compelling. There is a level of focus and fascination, and the way these crimes are covered profoundly affects our perception of what the most pressing problems facing society are.

One day, it struck me that the world would be a very different place if environmental crimes were treated in the same way as murder. Why aren’t they? Should they be?

For now, such crimes may mistakenly seem distant and abstract. If someone came into your apartment, set fire to your furniture, stole your valuables, killed your pet, and added poison to your water…what would you do? You will be terrified. You will go to the police. You may want revenge. You definitely want justice. It will be quite clear to you that a crime has been committed.

In fact, environmental crime is just that, but worse because it occurs on a massive scale. The problem is that it doesn’t always happen feel that way. But criminals who release harmful gases into the air, cut down protected forests, illegally fish, or pollute rivers harm us in a tangible way. And that’s before you consider the wider impacts on biodiversity and climate change.

Part of the difficulty in appreciating this is that we tend to confuse all kinds of environmental damage in a way that we don’t when it comes to familiar crimes. People intuitively understand the difference between hate speech and murder, even though both are acts of aggression. No one thinks of them as interchangeable. But this He is How we tend to think about environmental crime: People who don’t separate their recycling or fly often are theoretically put in the same category as those who commit heinous acts of degradation. We must stop putting worldly ignorance or selfishness in the same bucket as serious green crimes, and focus on the environmental equivalent of serial killers.

It is useful to define what environmental crime is. Simply put, it occurs when someone breaks the law – through negligence, recklessness or intentionally – and causes environmental damage by doing so. Sometimes, certain green laws are violated by releasing high levels of toxic substances into the air, water or soil, destroying protected plants or killing endangered animals. There are also more incidental crimes, such as committing fraud to circumvent hunting permits, laundering money to hide the proceeds of illegal mining, or engaging in corruption to facilitate wildlife trafficking.

It’s easy to default to the outdated stereotype of evil corporations watching the world burn while collecting the proceeds of exploitation and extraction. Although corporate misconduct is part of the problem, it is often organized crime gangs that do the dirty work. They look more like the dangerous world of drug dealers than men in suits who make decisions based on greed.

For example, in the context of wildlife trafficking, crime bosses with money and connections in China may employ middlemen in Mozambique who head to towns to recruit desperate locals willing to hunt elephants or pangolins. Guards and customs agents are bribed to turn a blind eye to ivory and pangolin scales being smuggled across the border. Papers are forged, financial experts create shell companies and launder money, claiming that the syndicate is trading in “plastic pellets.” The same type of structuring applies if we are talking about illegally extracted minerals, toxic waste or timber harvested from protected areas.

It is perhaps easier to envision these mafia-style operations as serious wrongdoing than the image of environmental crime we may have in mind. Although money is often the driving force, it is not only Motivation, just as “power” is not the only reason people commit murder. If we ask perpetrators why they do it, their answers can be as revealing as the explanations given for other types of crimes. In general, there are six psychological motivations: ease, impunity, greed, rationalization, conformity, and despair.

And if you’re tempted to step back and say that environmental crimes don’t happen because of individuals, but rather because of “the system,” I hear you. Social structures, ideologies and politics have a profound impact on human behaviour. Using this term – system – It can feel like a thoughtful contribution to a difficult discussion, underpinned by a desire not to oversimplify. But who exactly is he, or what is he? order?

The serial killer also lives in society, and we can blame society for any difficulties he may face. But if I simply cited “the system” as a motive for murder on a true crime show, people would want me to be more precise. We understand that choices are involved, and that motivations are personal and not just systemic. Otherwise wouldn’t we all become criminals? The same is true for those whose illegal activities harm the environment – ​​they are not simply victims of the system, nor are they motivated solely by greed.

I have tried to illustrate how a strange double standard seems to apply to the way we write and talk about environmental crime – and therefore how we think about it more generally. Imagine a world where they take up as much space in our news feeds and podcasts as gangs and murders do. We heard about the damage done, as well as about the efforts being made to catch and punish the perpetrators. This would have a number of benefits: it would act as a deterrent to potential criminals; It would counter the kind of environmental anxiety we feel when we think “no one is doing anything”; It will also help set new social standards, making clear that crimes that damage the ecosystems that support us are no less serious than personal crimes. Placing them in the same psychological category as murder means we can better appreciate what is really at stake.

Dr. Julia Shaw is a criminal psychologist in University College London He is the author of Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Who Are Destroying the Planet and How to Stop Them.

Further reading

How to Save the Amazon by Dom Phillips (Bonaire, £22)

Oil Papers by Jeff Dembicki (Greystone, £10.99)

Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara (St Martin’s Press, £24.99)