Article
Aging in Prison and Correction Policy in Global Perspectives
Tina Maschi, Keith Morgen, Annette Hintenach, and Adriana Kaye
Published online:23 February 2021Subjects:
There has been a growing awareness among academic and professional communities, as well as the general public, of the global rise in the number of aging prisoners across the world. Both the scholarly literature and social media have documented the high human, social, and economic costs of housing older adults with complex physical, mental health, legal, and social needs. It is imperative to explore the crisis and select correctional policies and practices that have contributed to the rise in the aging and the seriously and terminally ill populations in global prisons. A comparative framing and analysis across the globe show how some countries, such as the United States, have a higher per capita rate of incarcerating older adults in prisons compared to other countries, such as Northern Ireland. Variations in profiles and manifestations of personal and social conditions affect pathways to prison for some older adults. Explanatory perspectives describe why some individuals are at an increased risk of growing old in prison compared to other individuals. Indigeneity, globalization, race and ethnicity, power and inequality, and processes of development and underdevelopment have affected the growth of the aging prison population. Promising practices have the potential to disengage social mechanisms that have contributed to the mass incarceration of the elderly and engage a more compassionate approach to crime and punishment for people of all ages, their families, and communities. Show Less
Article
Anti-Trafficking in Southeast Asia
Julie Ham
Published online:27 August 2020Subjects:
The positioning of Southeast Asia (comprising Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar or Burma, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) as an anti-trafficking hub belies the global relevance of regional patterns. The configurations of anti-trafficking vary across countries; however, the specific trends and patterns hold relevance to the region as a whole. For instance, the research on anti-trafficking in Thailand examines the co-constitutive interactions between the illegibility of human trafficking and the growth of the anti-trafficking industry, particularly in relation to market-based interventions. Critical research on Vietnam offers an instructive analysis of the fusion between humanitarianism and punishment that characterizes “rehabilitation” efforts in anti-trafficking. Research on Singapore and Indonesia considers the function of co-constitutive interactions between the hyper-visibility of sex trafficking and the relative invisibility of labor trafficking. In Indonesia—as a country of origin, transit, and destination—the fractured contours of anti-trafficking responses have produced unexpected or unpredictable interactions, marked by competing understandings of what trafficking is and the accountability of differing governmental bodies. Recent research on the Philippines illustrates the use of gendered surveillance in barring the departure of Filipino nationals as a means of “preventing” human trafficking. These patterns demonstrate the uneasy fusions and alliances among humanitarianism, market economies, law enforcement, and border control that mark responses to human trafficking in Southeast Asia. Show Less
Article
Attitudes Toward Punishment
Monica M. Gerber
Published online:25 March 2021Subjects:
Why do people support the harsh punishment of criminal offenders? Understanding public punitiveness is relevant because punitive measures have been increasing worldwide since the year 2000, while public perceptions are an important factor driving penal policies. These punitive trends have taken place even though crime rates have generally not increased and even decreased in many parts of the world. Punitive attitudes—understood here as general support for the application of harsh sentences to criminal offenders—have been captured measuring people’s beliefs about specific sanctions and their intensity, the support for specific sentencing policies, and the evaluation of the penal system, among others. Research on the factors explaining public punitiveness can be broadly classified into two categories: utilitarian and retributive perspectives. According to the utilitarian perspective, punishment is a means to reduce future crime and control the behavior of offenders, usually through deterrence and incapacitation. From this perspective, punitiveness should be driven by concerns about high crime rates, fear of crime, and victimization experiences. From a retributive perspective, punishment serves a symbolic function by retaliating a wrong more than preventing future crimes. Two retributive and symbolic functions of punishment are discussed in the literature: On the one hand, it is argued that punishment helps clarify moral and normative boundaries; on the other hand, punishment can also help clarify status boundaries and maintain dominant groups’ power. Other factors found to influence people’s attitudes are political ideology (e.g., right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation), situational antecedents (e.g., the presence of a social threat or specific characteristics of victim and offender), and the media. Show Less
Article
Borders, Mobilities, and Governance in Transnational Perspective
Richard Staring and René van Swaaningen
Published online:28 June 2021Subjects:
Despite the dominant notion that people are now allegedly living in the “era of globalization,” accompanied by rosy stories about a “global village,” borders have never lost their significance. On the contrary, the importance of borders has grown significantly under recent global and European crises. Not only have the number of borders increased, but borders also have become fluid as they moved outside national territories in order to protect countries, as well as political and economic unions, against the perceived threats of transnational organized crime, pandemics, unwanted migration, and terrorism. This externalization of borders through (financial) support and bilateral agreements with other countries led to a relocation of borders far beyond the geographical borders of nation states. In addition, borders have been renewed, reinforced, (temporarily) reactivated, and transformed. Specific attention is paid to some developments surrounding borders, including a responsibilization process on border control, in which governments increasingly stimulate or enforce private parties to take up responsibility in controlling their companies, and ultimately their borders, with respect to irregular migration and crime. Borders are also embodied in different kinds of measures and policies of nation-states that guard access of welfare state provisions, and through the merging of criminal law and immigration law (i.e., crimmigration). Finally, the “border industry” means business for construction, infrastructure, biometrics, and identity technology companies, as well as for security forces, research institutes, aid organizations, and human smugglers. The commodification of borders is an ongoing process as envisioned not only in popular culture as music, literature, reality TV and movies, but also in borders that have become important touristic attractions. The framing of borders through this commodification process as inevitable and as a necessity in turn expresses and legitimates current state agendas. Show Less
Article
Bullying in School and Cyberspace
Jane Timmons-Mitchell, Ivette Noriega, and Daniel J. Flannery
Published online:26 May 2021Subjects:
For students, bullying is a significant problem, especially in middle school: up to half of students are involved, either as a bully, a victim, or a bystander. The effects of bullying range from negligible to very severe, including individual psychological difficulties as well as consequences for criminogenic behavior. Theories to explain multidetermined bullying behavior include ecological as well as family-based approaches. Bullying must contain the following elements: unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or groups of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. This definition describes traditional bullying, in which a person or persons can be seen to be engaged in bullying behavior. Since the late 1990s, cyberbullying has been on the rise. Traditional bullying and cyberbullying differ in the following ways: (a) cyberbullying often means the victim does not know who the bully is; (b) cyberbullying is not a discreet incident; it can be preserved in cyberspace indefinitely; (c) anger rumination, anxiety, depression, and suicidality are more prevalent among cyberbully victims; (d) cyberbullies can exhibit decreased empathy for others relative to traditional bullies; and (e) longitudinal research has found some support that cyberbullies may develop delinquent behaviors in adulthood. Bullying affects a significant proportion of students, between 18% and 31% of students in the United States are likely to be involved in traditional bullying, whereas rates of cyberbullying involvement are close to 59%. Any participation in bullying can affect youth negatively. Being either a bully or a victim can lead to depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. Being a perpetrator of bullying and cyberbullying may also increase the likelihood of criminal activity in young adulthood. According to the path analytic model of juvenile delinquency, it is likely that association with delinquent peers and parenting style are related to bullying behavior. Prevention and intervention programs have had some positive effects. Prevention and intervention efforts should concentrate on universal dissemination of effective strategies, including that cyberbullies are not really anonymous. Family and school-based interventions can strengthen adult support while encouraging programs that teach children to respect each other, promoting prosocial development. For traditional bullying, school climate programs in primary school have shown positive effects. Interventions for traditional bullying that are based in family therapy have shown success. Due to the novelty of cyberbullying, few intervention studies are available as yet. Efforts to prevent cyberbullying include setting up anonymous tiplines in schools and sharing up-to-date technological advances with parents so that they can implement those blocks that are available. Finally, there are no specific federal laws in the United States addressing bullying; however, federal regulations do exist to provide frameworks for anti-discrimination laws pertaining to protected classes. Although there are no explicit federal regulations that address bullying, state and local policies have been key components in addressing bullying issues. There has been some evidence that suggest that anti-bullying laws and policies in schools may decrease bullying perpetration. Countries including New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden have passed specific laws to address bullying, while some countries apply laws created to address other infractions to include bullying. Show Less
Article
Child Terrorists and Child Soldiers
Susanne Martin
Published online:22 January 2021Subjects:
Children are often the most vulnerable victims of war. In some cases, they are also among the perpetrators of violence. Child soldiers and child terrorists are simultaneously victims and victimizers, in some ways symbolizing the depravity and desperation of modern warfare as it is practiced in many parts of the world. Children’s roles as combatants are even more concerning when the children are very young. How do children come to fill these positions? Why do children join armed groups, and why do armed groups seek to employ children? In fact, children become militants for various reasons, most of which have little to do with “choice.” While some youths choose violence, many children’s options are limited by the contexts in which they live, their socialization or the conditioning they receive, and the cruel and coercive tactics used by armed groups, which include kidnapping and force. Armed groups employ children for their own benefit, and although children may appear weak and unskilled, they also offer unique strategic advantages to the groups employing them. Children are, by some estimates, easier to control, cheaper to employ, and easier to replace than their adult counterparts. The implications of childhood soldiering and children’s involvement in terrorism include ongoing warfare and conflict in places with weak or failed states, where societies are already struggling. The violence is particularly harsh on civilian populations, the primary targets of the violence of weak armed groups. Populations suffer displacement and poverty, and their children remain at risk of recruitment, lost lives, and lost futures. Show Less
Article
Colonialism, Crime, and Social Control
Viviane Saleh-Hanna
Published online:27 August 2020Subjects:
- Crime, Media, and Popular Culture
- Critical Criminology
- International Crime
- Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
- Women, Crime, and Justice
Crime is a distinctly European concept that was institutionalized into the criminal justice system through the penal code, created in the 1700s by founding theorists of criminology’s classical school of thought. In practice, crime is a concept that limits what can be defined as harmful and violent. Written at the height of Europe’s genocidal colonial wars and chattel slavery, the penal code excluded, and continues to exclude mass atrocities and violations committed through these institutions. Since criminal justice institutions were birthed through and spread by Western Europe’s colonial wars around the globe, the study of colonialism, crime, and social control requires a re-evaluation of the pillars of Western European thought and the peculiar colonizing economies and punitive praxis that produced the criminal justice system. Through an anticolonial, genealogical framework scholars and researchers can better locate criminal justice institutions, practices, and concepts within their colonial contexts, allowing for a more thorough understanding of how history, power, politics, and economy shape crime and practice social control in the 21st century. At the core of an anticolonial study of crime and social control is an understanding that Europe’s crime-concept depends upon institutionalized constructions of dangerousness for colonized people and nations, and lack thereof, for colonizing people and nations. Dangerousness, as defined by colonial renditions of race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, nation, and so forth, anchors the cultural and implemented processes of criminalization; as a result, proper and comprehensive deconstructions of colonizing definitions of dangerousness require an intersectional understanding of power and oppression. Therefore, an effective framework for the study of colonialism, crime, and social control necessitates a re-evaluation and re-articulation of the following questions: what is colonialism?; what is crime?; what is colonial social control?; and what is criminology’s relationship to colonialism? Show Less
Article
Community Policing in Comparative Perspective
Jacques de Maillard and Jan Terpstra
Published online:25 March 2021Subjects:
Community (oriented) policing has become one of the most popular models of policing worldwide. After its initial implementation in many Western countries, community policing has also been transferred to transitional societies, which often lack strong democratic traditions. The international diffusion of community policing should not make us forget that community policing comes in all shapes and sizes and is highly varied in its operations. After having defined the concept and analyzed its rise in Anglo-American countries, this diversity is illustrated by scrutinizing its implementation in different national configurations: a continental European country relatively open to Anglo-American influences (the Netherlands), socially homogeneous countries with a high level of trust in the police (the Nordic countries), a centralized country with an administrative Napoleonic tradition (France), and postconflict societies (South Africa and Northern Ireland). These various national trajectories highlight the common drivers and barriers in community policing reforms: political priorities (through emphasizing crime fighting or zero tolerance policing), socioeconomic disparities and ethnic tensions (which may imply a history of mistrust and vicious circles between the police and some segments of the public), professional identities and interests (disqualifying community police officers as “social workers”), and organizational resources (managerial procedures, lack of training and human resources) that may hinder the reform process. These diverse experiences also draw attention to the variety of context-dependent factors that impact the fate of community policing reforms. Political climates, police–government relations, socioeconomic inequalities, and police traditions may differ, which requires further analysis of the various political, historical, socioeconomic, and cultural contexts of specific community policing reforms. Show Less
Article
Conceptualizing Radicalization in Comparative Context
Sophia Moskalenko
Published online:25 March 2021Subjects:
Since the attacks of 9/11, research on radicalization has burgeoned. Most theories of radicalization postulate multiple pathways to radicalization, grievance as a major radicalizing force, emotion rather than ideology precipitating radicalization, and small-group dynamics contributing to radicalization. Empirical data have consistently supported the distinction between activism and radicalism and between radical opinion and radical action. Research into the special category of the radical actor, or lone attackers, uncovered two possible profiles: disconnected-disordered and caring-compelled, each motivated by a kind of disordered emotional state. Internet and social media have amplified and broadened radicalization of both opinion and action. Extrapolating from these findings to the recent increase in right-wing radicalization, a new definition of radicalization is proposed, suggesting a shift in researchers’ and policymakers’ focus from identifying instances of radicalization to identifying its causes. In this conceptual view, radicalization is a result of perceived widespread injustice, where shared narratives highlight grievances (radicalization of opinion) and motivate a few to act against perceived perpetrators (radicalization of action). Implications for research and policy are discussed. Show Less
Article
Constructing Citizenship, “Legality,” and “Illegality” in Comparative Perspectives
Maria Escobar and Tanya Golash-Boza
Published online:23 February 2021Subjects:
Citizenship rights are often unevenly allocated—sometimes by design and sometimes not. Even when citizenship rights are evenly allocated on paper, these rights are often unevenly distributed in practice, with some people experiencing full citizenship and others lesser forms of citizenship. Citizenship is both inclusionary and exclusionary. Through its inclusionary aspects, citizenship is the foundation of a democratic society. Through its exclusionary aspects, citizenship produces denizens, undocumented populations, and other precarious individuals who are excluded from the polity and denied the right to shape their environment via voting and running for office. When people cross borders without following the host country’s legal process, they often become labeled “illegal.” Illegality, however, is a racialized category that sticks to some people more than others. Immigrants labeled as illegal experience not only the denial of rights but also enhanced vulnerability. Citizenship, illegality, and legality are constructed in different ways across time and space. These socially and legally constructed categories have significant consequences for people’s lives. Show Less
Article
Countering Violent Extremism: A Framework for Comparative Analysis
Keiran Hardy
Published online:27 October 2020Subjects:
Countering violent extremism (CVE) has become a core component of counterterrorism strategies. As a concept and field of research, the CVE label lacks clarity, but it refers to policy and programs designed to prevent violent extremism and radicalization. The major components of CVE include community engagement, interventions for vulnerable youth, efforts to counter online extremism, and attempts to deradicalize terrorist offenders through psychological and religious counseling. Evidence about the effectiveness of these programs remains limited, but empirical research in the field is growing. CVE is commonly understood through a public-health framework that focuses on program targets: communities, at-risk individuals, and convicted offenders. A more thorough comparative approach would also consider governance, definitions of key concepts, aims, actors, targets, activities, and context. Show Less
Article
Criminal Governance in Latin America
Jorge Mantilla and Andreas E. Feldmann
Published online:26 May 2021Subjects:
Criminal governance understood as the regulation of social order, including informal or illegal economies through the establishment of formal and informal institutions that replace, complement, or compete with the state and distribute public goods (e.g., social services, justice, and security) is an expanding area of inquiry in the field of criminology. This analysis, which centers on Latin America, a region beset by this problem, unpacks specific dimensions of this concept including the overlap between the state and criminal orders, the relationship between violence and consent, and violence management through selective forms of enforcement. In so doing it sheds light on how changes in the architecture of governance of many underprivileged communities across the world, but especially in the Global South, is affecting in critical ways the lives and wellbeing of millions of individuals. The discussion underscores the need to reinforce interdisciplinary work linking criminology and other disciplines (e.g., political science, sociology, law, anthropology) as a way to enhance our understanding of the profound impact that criminal governance orders have on the political and social dimensions of contemporary societies. Show Less
Article
Critical Criminologies
Walter S. DeKeseredy
Published online:29 May 2020Subjects:
- Crime, Media, and Popular Culture
- Criminological Theory
- Critical Criminology
- International Crime
- Race, Ethnicity, and Crime
- Women, Crime, and Justice
There is no single critical criminology. Rather, there are critical criminologies with different histories, methods, theories, and political perspectives. However, critical criminology is often defined as a perspective that views the major sources of crime as the unequal class, race/ethnic, and gender relations that control our society. Critical criminologists oppose prisons and other draconian means of social control. Their main goal is major radical and cultural change, but they recognize that these transitions will not occur in the current neoliberal era. Hence, most critical criminologists propose short-term anticrime policies and practices and fundamental social, economic, and political transformations, such as a change from a capitalist economy to one based on more socialist principles. Show Less
Article
Cultural Bias in International Criminology
René van Swaaningen
Published online:26 April 2021Subjects:
To make some advances in international criminology, one needs to face that, historically, criminological knowledge has often been used to support colonial and authoritarian rule and acknowledge that international criminologists operate by and large in a culturally ill-informed vacuum in which a “universal” validity of Western theories is taken for granted. Starting from Edward Said’s famous critique of the “orientalism” of Western academics, an investigation is needed on how current cultural anthropological debates on cultural landscapes and cosmopolitan identities could help overcome this problem. The main scholarly debates in non-Western and counter-colonial criminology set a dialogue between perspectives elaborated by Global North scholars and viewpoints proposed by authors working in a variety of Global South regions. It constitutes, in this regard, a contribution to decolonize and globalize international criminology debates because it considers voices and visions all too frequently overlooked by the extant English-speaking literature. In addition, a nexus is set between current developments in this academic field and viewpoints put forth by critical criminology authors decades ago. It is argued that a culturally informed international criminology is not based on humanitarian do-gooderism or shame over a colonial past, rather, it is fundamental if criminologists are to understand the world around us and the “glocal” questions that confront the field. Show Less
Article
Cyberpolicing
Jin R. Lee
Published online:19 October 2022Subjects:
Cybercrime is generally understood as behaviors that involve the use of virtual environments and/or networked computer systems to generate harm. This broad definition of cybercrime captures a variety of different online behaviors, including interpersonal violence offenses such as cyberbullying and online harassment, as well as those involving the unauthorized use and access of computer systems such as malware dissemination, ransomware, and distributed denial of service attacks. Cybercrimes are policed by both law enforcement (e.g., local, state or provincial,… … Show More
Article
Death Penalty and Capital Punishment in Comparative Perspective
Philip L. Reichel
Published online:21 December 2022Subjects:
More than 70% of the world’s countries are considered to have abolished the death penalty. The nearly 30% of countries retaining the death penalty and carrying out executions are found primarily in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia-Pacific, and some states in the United States. Where the death penalty continues to be authorized, legislators must determine the crimes for which the penalty may be applied and the method by which the execution will occur. International law stipulates that a death sentence should be imposed for only the most serious crimes, but the term “serious” is not defined. As a result, the death penalty is not only applied for the crime of murder (generally considered an example of “most serious”), but also for other crimes against the person (e.g., rape, kidnapping), crimes against the state (e.g., treason, espionage, terrorism), offenses against the community (e.g., drug-trafficking), offenses against property (e.g., robbery, arson, and burglary), and crimes against religion (e.g., blasphemy or apostasy, and offenses against sexual morality). After conviction, the method of executing those convicted may be by hanging (currently the most widely authorized and frequently used method), shooting, beheading, stoning, lethal injection, or electrocution. Where the death penalty is retained, arguments favoring its use are likely to focus on issues of deterrence, retribution, and religious doctrine. Where it has been abolished, the arguments have highlighted concerns of questionable fairness in its application, the possibility of executing an innocent person, public opinion, and how capital punishment violates human rights. This last point that the death penalty violates human rights is the predominate view under international law and provides the primary theme explaining the world trend toward abolition. Show Less
Article
Deviant Subcultures in European Context
Alexandra Stupperich, Helga Ihm, and Shannon B. Harper
Published online:28 June 2021Subjects:
Since the late 1950s, criminological research has focused on the question of why particular groups are more likely to become involved in criminal and/or deviant behavior. Theories about subcultures start from the premise that smaller sub- or countercultural groupings exist within a larger society and differentiate themselves by developing their own moral precepts, values, and norms. Subcultural theories were originally developed in the United States and have a long theoretical tradition dating back to the 1930s. Structural-functionalist sociologist Albert Cohen in 1955 first used the term, “delinquent subculture.” In his book Criminal Youth, Cohen defined subculture as the sum of dominant knowledge, convictions and beliefs, conventions, preferences, and prejudices within and acquired by participation in the particular group. Deviant behavior arises when these values and norms run counter to those of the dominant culture. Cohen interpreted delinquency as a collective, practical, and quick solution to problems caused by unequal opportunities in the class system. The basic assumption of early subcultural theories was that members of the lower socioeconomic classes established their own value system and norms due to their inability to conform to middle-class values and norms and achieve middle-class goals. Later in the 1970s, subcultural theory was altered and further expanded by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University. The CCCS posits that criminal subcultures favor delinquency due to intersecting attitudes such as the rejection of authority, hedonism, or sensation-seeking. Moreover, the relationships between members within a subculture are important due to the shared nature of values, norms, and identities. Regionality is no longer a criterion for a delinquent/criminal subculture due to modern Europe’s high level of mobility and digital networks. Instead, modern delinquent/criminal subcultures utilize social media outlets not limited to region to disseminate their values and norms and establish identity. Islamic fundamentalism and the Reich Citizens and Sovereign Citizens movements are examples of subcultures that utilize the Internet to rapidly spread programs and ideologies in a targeted and simple manner. While earlier subcultural studies tended to explain the relationship between subculture and criminality as due to frustration over social and economic inequality, more recent research argues that subcultural theories need to be macro-level focused. Consequently, recent scholarship frames subcultural criminality as an expression of groups’ social and material life, which are defined by stylistic factors such as intentional communication, homology, and specific (piecemeal) solutions to problems. Show Less
Article
Electronic Monitoring Around the World
Mike Nellis
Published online:26 April 2021Subjects:
Since its operational beginnings in the United States in 1982—where its prototypes were first experimented with in the 1960s and 1970s—the electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders has spread to approximately 40 countries around the world, ostensibly—but not often effectively—to reduce the use of imprisonment by making bail, community supervision, and release from prison more controlling than they have hitherto been. No single authority monitors the development of EM around the world, and it is difficult to gain fully comprehensive accounts of what is happening outside the Western and Anglophone users of it. Some countries are secretive. Standpoints in writing on EM are varied and partisan. Although it still tends to be the pacesetter of technical innovation, the United States remains a relatively lower user of EM, in part because the exceptional punitiveness of its penal culture has inhibited its expansion, even when it has itself been developed in various punitive ways. Interprofessional and intergovernmental processes of “policy transfer” have contributed to EMs spreading around the world, but the commercial bodies that manufacture and market EM equipment have been of at least equal importance. In Europe, the Confederation of European Probation (CEP), a transnational probation advocacy organization, took an early interest in EM, and its regular conferences became a touchstone of international debate. As it developed globally, the United Nations reluctantly accepted that it may be of some value even in developing countries and set out standards for its use. Continuing innovations in EM technology will create new possibilities for offender supervision, both more and less punitive, but it is always culture, commerce, and politics in particular jurisdictions which shape the scale, pace, and form of its development. Show Less
Article
Environmental Crime
Carole Gibbs and Rachel Boratto
Published online:29 March 2017Subjects:
Environmental crime is a complex and ambiguous term for several reasons. It is sometimes used as an umbrella term for crimes related to biodiversity, wildlife, animals, natural resources, hazardous waste, banned substances, and environmental quality, but scholars have also developed typologies to capture the unique dimensions of each form of environmental crime. Disagreements regarding whether to distinguish violations of environmental laws (addressed via civil prosecution or administrative actions) from environmental crimes (criminally prosecuted), and whether… … Show More
Article
Environmental Crime in Latin America and Southern Green Criminology
David Rodríguez Goyes
Published online:25 March 2021Subjects:
Latin America has been the site of extensive raw material extraction ever since its colonization by Europeans in the late 15th century. Throughout this period, large-scale resource extraction and associated practices—agroindustry, deforestation, disposal of waste and dangerous substances, industrial fishing, mining, and wildlife trafficking—have been the cause of widespread environmental crime and social conflict in Latin America, harming ecosystems and human and nonhuman species. Environmental degradation has simultaneously triggered further crimes such as the establishment of illegal markets and the creation of monopolies that control natural resources. Furthermore, environmental victimization has heightened social conflict in Latin American societies. Latin American criminologists began paying attention to environmental destruction and socioenvironmental conflicts in Latin America in the 1970s, but anglophone criminologists paid little if any attention to these criminologists for at least four decades. But the recent maturation of Southern green criminology has seen an increased focus of criminological research on environmental crime in Latin America. Latin American criminologists have exposed instances of primary, secondary, and tertiary green crimes in Latin America, and by so doing they have added depth to the formulations of anglophone green criminologists. Southern green criminology is concerned with the sociocriminological study of environmental crime in the Global South, while being attentive to (a) the legacy of colonization and North–South and core–periphery divides in the production of environmental crime, (b) the epistemological contributions of the marginalized, impoverished, and oppressed, and (c) the particularities of the contexts of the Global South. Southern green criminologists are currently producing innovative academic knowledge about the causes of, consequences of, and potential responses to environmental crime in Latin America. Show Less
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