Abstract
The field of criminology continues to give little attention to the behaviors and crimes that adversely impact the environment although decades of research has highlighted these crimes result in greater social harms, losses, and deaths compared to traditional street crimes. Moreover, these crimes are met with little consequences despite several laws and regulations charged with protecting the environment and public welfare. As a result, residents of minority and poor communities are faced with social, racial, and economic inequalities. This draws attention to the green victimization of marginalized groups and underrepresented populations worldwide. In the United States, these groups include Native Americans, low-income white communities, and prisoners. On a global scale, examples include the Amungme tribe, those who work and live near tanneries in Bangladesh, and Indigenous environmental activists. The chapter seeks to identify and raise awareness of invisible victims of environmental crimes.
TopIntroduction
In 2016, media coverage exposed the controversy at the Standing Rock Reservation where members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with supporters from across the U.S., joined together to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The Tribe stood in solidarity, opposing the pipeline project that threatened their land, water, culture, and future, and continued to fight for the protection and preservation of their rights, despite intervention from law enforcement and Dakota Access Pipeline security. Video documentation provided evidence of North Dakota law enforcement officers firing teargas into crowds of protestors, spraying protestors with high-powered hoses, shooting rubber bullets at protestors’ hands and heads, and releasing law enforcement canines into the crowds (The Young Turks Politics, 2016). What began as a peaceful protest for the protection of the water and culture of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe escalated into human rights abuse allegations.
According to popular media reports, the Dakota Access Pipeline was rerouted due to its proximity to municipal water supply wells and a predominantly White residential area (Dalrymple, 2016; Thorbecke, 2016). Instead, the new route would cut through Sioux land established under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and bordered by several Native American reservations. Figure 1 shows the proximity of the new route to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and boundaries outlined in the Treaty. Later, officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) expressed concerns regarding the environment and safety of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, citing the potential impacts to their Reservation and insufficient environmental justice analyses (McKenna, 2016). Despite recommendations from the EPA, DOI, and ACHP to redraft the environmental assessment and consider alternate routes reducing risk to water supplies, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) dismissed these concerns and published their assessment which claimed, “the anticipated environmental, economic, cultural, and social effects'' of the pipeline project were “not injurious to the public interest” (McKenna, 2016, para. 8). A decision from the Biden Administration regarding the future of DAPL is currently awaiting its time in court; yet, Indigenous and environmental groups continue protesting and calling for the pipeline construction to be shut down (Clark, 2021).
Figure 1. Proximity of Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) route to Standing Rock Sioux Reservation (Tysiachniouk et al., 2020)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Environmental Harms: Acts that result in consequences that pose a threat to the environment and humankind, whether or not they are recognized by laws and regulations.
Environmental Racism: The disproportionate exposure of minority and poor communities to pollution.
Green Criminology: A subfield of criminology developed in the 1990s to study the impacts of behaviors and actions that adversely affect the environment.
Environmental Justice: A concept that focuses on the fair treatment of all persons with respect to matters of the environment, including burdens and benefits.
Ecocide: Destruction of the environment.
Environmental Crimes: Acts that result in consequences that pose a threat to the environment and humankind that are recognized and punishable by laws and regulations.
Capitalism: A political and economic system that prioritizes profit over everything else.
Treadmill of Production: The relationship between capitalism and nature, wherein capitalism exploits nature for production and consumption, which in turn can have adverse effects on nature.
Green Victimization: The impact of consequences of environmental (green) harms and crimes.
Genocide: The intentional or unintentional physical or cultural destruction of a group of people by another group (often a more powerful group).