Introduction<\/b><\/p>\n
Before learning about green criminology, I honestly never thought much about the connection between crime and the food industry or even if there was a thing like \u2018food crime\u2019 or \u2018theoricide\u2019 because for me crime was things like theft, assault, or drug trafficking and not things like damaging ecosystems for profit or cutting trees or not transporting animals as per <\/span>Health of Animal Regulations <\/span><\/i>amendments!But after reading the sources on green criminology and food crime, I started to realize that some of the most harmful actions in society are often completely normalized and even legal.<\/span><\/p>\n What interests me most about green criminology is how it forces people to look beyond traditional ideas of crime and think about harm in a broader way; I mean the trees and animals around us are also suffering and no one is talking about that? Environmental destruction, exploitation of workers, animal cruelty, and corporate pollution may not always be treated as criminal offences, but they still cause massive damage to people, animals, and ecosystems. In my opinion, the modern food industry is one of the clearest examples of this problem because it combines environmental harm, corporate power, inequality, and exploitation all within a system that people rely on every day going all the way to the food in our plates as a consumer, starting way early in the food chain from the producer itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What is Green Criminology?<\/b><\/p>\n Green criminology focuses on environmental harm, crimes against animals, ecological destruction, and environmental injustice (Simmons et al., 2023). One thing I found really interesting is how green criminology expands the definition of victimization. Traditional criminology usually focuses on human victims, but green criminology argues that animals, forests, oceans, and future generations can also be victims of harm (White, 2018). I think this is important because environmental destruction affects far more than just one person or one community. The impacts can last for decades and spread across entire ecosystems. For example, pollution caused by industrial farming does not just disappear once food reaches grocery stores. It affects rivers, wildlife, air quality, and climate systems. Even though these harms may seem less visible than street crime, they can impact millions of people over time.<\/span><\/p>\n The Hidden Harms of the Food Industry<\/b><\/p>\n The topic that stood out to me most was food crime and the environmental harm connected to modern food systems. Before reading these articles, I never really questioned how food production could relate to criminology. However, the food industry contributes to a wide range of harms including pollution, exploitation of workers, animal suffering, and environmental destruction.I never thought that the olives I am eating are being coated with copper to make them look more attractive as mentioned in Tourangeau et al, 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n One major issue is industrial agriculture. When large-scale farming operations start prioritizing their profit they start relying heavily on pesticides,\u00a0 which contributes significantly to climate change and environmental degradation.Personally, I think society has become disconnected from where food actually comes from. Most people only see the final product in grocery stores and not the environmental costs behind it. Green criminology exposes these hidden harms by asking important questions about who benefits from industrial food production and who suffers the consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n Corporate Power and Environmental Harm<\/b><\/p>\n One of the biggest themes I noticed across all three readings was the role of corporate power. Like I have mentioned further below, large corporations have enormous influence over food production and environmental policies because these industries generate significant economic profit, governments are often reluctant to impose strict regulations on them (Simmons et al., 2023.).This, in my opinion creates a frustrating double standard because ordinary people can face criminal charges for relatively small offences, while corporations responsible for widespread environmental damage may only receive fines or weak penalties society defines crime.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Environmental Justice and Inequality<\/b><\/p>\n Another important topic connected to green criminology is environmental justice. Environmental harm does not affect everyone equally. Poorer communities, Indigenous populations, and vulnerable workers are often exposed to the greatest environmental risks while benefiting the least from industrial systems, for example the Mexicans working in Canada and North America in search of a better life are exploited as they are cheap labour and they are made to work overtime and in less pay with poor housing conditions (Tourangeau et al., 2020).This really made me think about how environmental issues are also social justice issues. Communities living near industrial farms or polluted areas often experience worse health outcomes, unsafe working conditions, and environmental contamination. Or, to be honest these communities do not choose to live near big industries or drink lead laden water from these factories but on the contrary these industries decide to set up where there are people of lower socioeconomic status living or where there are Indigenous people living, like here in Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n Crimes Against Animals and Nature<\/b><\/p>\n One area of green criminology that I found especially thought-provoking was its focus on harms against animals and the exposure to new terms like \u2018species justice\u2019 and \u2018theriocide.\u2019 Personally, I think society tends to treat animals as products rather than living beings and I am not saying that everyone needs to completely stop eating meat or radically change their lifestyle overnight. However, I do think green criminology encourages people to think more critically about the systems they participate in every day.<\/span><\/p>\n Green Criminology’s Importance<\/b><\/p>\n I think green criminology is becoming more and more relevant and it’s imperative more people learn about it because environmental crises are becoming impossible to ignore and things like climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and environmental disasters are now global concerns affecting millions of people.<\/span><\/p>\n What makes green criminology different from traditional criminology is that it focuses on long-term structural harm to the environment rather than only individual criminal acts. I remember my professor mentioning this to us on our first day of class that it is not something one person does to the environment, it is embedded in the system on multiple levels; and that’s what green criminology creates awareness about; about structural harm. In my opinion, this perspective is necessary because many environmental harms are deeply built into modern society, especially in North America where beef and pork are consumed increasingly but the provisions in place are played with, because of the wording used in them. To transport animals safely and to keep them in hospitable conditions, the wordings in these regulations(<\/span>Health of Animals regulations<\/span><\/i>) were made stricter by amendments in 2016 (Tourangeau et al., 2020). Just because they are going to be consumers does not mean that they deserve to be mistreated before and this shows how systemic harm is embedded. The food industry is only one example, but it clearly shows how environmental damage can become normalized when profit is prioritized over sustainability.Green criminology also reminds us that some of the most harmful actions in society are often hidden behind legal systems and corporate power. Just because something is legal does not mean it is ethical or harmless; this reminds of me the multi- million dollar makeup and skincare who test their products on animals but since they are the rich lobbyists supporting and financing the decision makers, no one questions the conditions in which they are kept, the regulations that must be followed, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n After reading these sources, I now see green criminology as one of the most important perspectives in modern criminology as it challenges traditional ideas about crime by focusing on environmental destruction, corporate harm, social inequality, and exploitation within systems that people interact with every day.<\/span><\/p>\n References<\/b><\/p>\n Simmons, G., Stevenson, R., and Vardy, M.(2023). \u201cChapter 13: Green criminology.\u201dIn S. Hassan & D. Letts(Eds.), Introduction to Criminology.\u201d KPU Pressbooks<\/span><\/p>\n White, R. (2018). Critical Green Criminology. In Routledge handbook of critical criminology (pp. 120-131). Routledge.<\/span><\/p>\n Brisman, A., & South, N. (2018). Green cultural criminology. In Routledge handbook of critical criminology (pp 132-142). Routledge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Introduction Before learning about green criminology, I honestly never thought much about the connection between crime and the food industry or even if there was a thing like \u2018food crime\u2019 or \u2018theoricide\u2019 because for me crime was things like theft, assault, or drug trafficking and not things like damaging ecosystems for profit or cutting trees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1513,"featured_media":797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-published"],"splot_meta":{"author":"Ganimat","license":"","footer":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.kpu.ca\/green-criminology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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