Green Crimes and Climate Change - Tilburg University 2024 PDF

Green crimes and climate change Scope of the problem Green crimes are big business! Environmental crime and environmental harm. Two main primary categories: Illegal exploitation of natural resources. Pollution of air, water and soil. Secondary problems: aggravating c...

Green crimes and climate change Scope of the problem Green crimes are big business! Environmental crime and environmental harm. Two main primary categories: Illegal exploitation of natural resources. Pollution of air, water and soil. Secondary problems: aggravating climate change, migration, violence, etc. Perpetrators: Criminal organisations Legal entities States Individuals Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 2 Criminological perspectives Mainstream perspective. Corporate criminal perspective. State-crime perspective. State-corporate crime perspective. Cultural criminological perspective. Feminist criminological perspective. Global southern perspective. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 3 Tackling environmental crime Criminal law enforcement Regulation and administrative enforcement Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Basel Convention/EU Waste Shipment Regulation. MARPOL convention. Prevention E.g. situational crime prevention methods. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 4 Theoretical approaches All criminological concepts and theories may be relevant. Individual level explanations. Social structure and social process theories. Systemic level approaches (critical, cultural, crimes of the powerful, treadmill of production, et cetera). Diane Vaughan’s framework of analysis is an example of an approach which combines different theories: Individual level (management). Organisational level (e.g. corporate culture, compliance mechanisms, functioning of the organisation). Systemic level (e.g competition, regulation, enforcement). Applicable to green crimes and harms, but also to other complex crimes (corporate crime, organised crime, state crime). Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 5 Example: mobile organised crime groups Mobile criminal groups originating from East and Southeastern European EU Member States and the Balkan countries involved in organised property crime committed in other EU-member states. Studied in the EU-project IMOBEX Individual level Background and motivations of leading individuals in MOCGs Crime groups also include victims of criminal exploitation: what makes them vulnerable? Organisational level Mapping the criminal business process: which steps do MOCGs need to take to commit the crimes. E.g. recruiting members, arranging transport, temporary housing, storage for stolen goods, et cetera, and how each of these steps could be disrupted. Systemic level Looking at the root causes of the problem, for instance at structural economic differences within the EU. MOCGs originating from Southeastern Europe often come from economically and socially deprived communities. How can we improve their situation? For more information see: https://research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publications/mobile-banditry-and-criminal- exploitation-the-results-of-the-imob Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 6 The ‘dieselgate’ scandal Fraud to circumvent ever stricter regulation of vehicles’ emissions. Availability of digital engine control systems since the 1990s. However, this also created opportunities to cheat by installing so-called defeat devices. The defeat device ‘noticed’ when the car was tested in a laboratory and kept emissions within limits. Road emission testing equipment for passenger cars was not available until 2008. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 7 Framework of analysis Individual level Personal characteristics of CEO’s and their management style Organizational level Internal complexity of organizations Internal compliance mechanisms and checks and balances Corporate culture Systemic level Market characteristics and competition Lack of regulations and enforcement Adopted from: Vaughan, D. (2007), ‘Beyond Macro- and Micro-Levels of Analysis, Organizations, and the Cultural Fix’, in International Handbook of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, edited by H. Pontell and G. Geis. New York: Springer, 3-24. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 8 Analysis: the CEO’s Unfortunately, we do not have psychological profiles of Volkswagen’s CEOs… Imposed extremely high pressure on (middle) management. ‘A nightmare for their underlings’ ‘He is completely insane and utterly unreliable, but I am very happy to have him around’ (about Piëch). Risk-taking and rule-bending VW had been accused in earlier affairs. Huge egos. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 9 Analysis: company characteristics Centralised structure and ‘engineering culture’ Lack of diversity. Command and control management style. Outsiders who tried to change corporate culture were not accepted. Growth as the sole option: peculiar composition of the supervisory board. Lack or failure of internal compliance mechanisms. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 10 Analysis: systemic factors VW struggled to keep its cars affordable under tighter environmental regulations. Relatively low profit per car sold. Automotive industry is a huge economical power. Lack of effective regulations. Lenient enforcement. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 11 Exam information The exam is scheduled on 20 December (resit on 24 January). Time 13.00 – 15.00. Exam time is 120 minutes. No reading material, notes, slides, et cetera allowed neither on paper nor digital. You will have no access to the Internet. You can go back to previous exam questions. There is only one correct answer for each question. The questions and answers will be randomised. Tutorial week 47 21-11-2024 12 Exam preparation Make sure to have a thorough understanding of: Criminological perspectives (mainstream, white-collar, critical, cultural, state-corporate crime, et cetera). Criminological theories (individual, social structure, social process, systemic). The main ideas of thinkers such as Beccaria, Hobbs, Durkheim, Foucault, et cetera). See the practice exams to familiarise yourself with how we formulate questions. Read the questions and the answers very carefully! 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