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Crime as Pollution? Theoretical, Definitional and Policy Concerns with Conceptualizing Crime as Pollution

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Abstract

Recently, criminologists have advocated understanding “crime as pollution” to argued for market based crime control policy initiatives that mirror pollution control policy initiatives. That argument assumes that pollution control policies are effective social control mechanisms. This article explores definitional, conceptual, methodological, theoretical, and policy concerns which arise from the “crime as pollution” concept. While the “crime as pollution” position has sparked interesting policy discussions in criminology, we suggest that viewing crime as pollution is inconsistent with the scientific definitions and measurement of pollution. Moreover, environmental market based social control responses have generated significant environmental justice concerns the crime as pollution model overlooks and hence is likely to replicate. Rather than crime as pollution, criminologists would be better served by further exploration of established criminological literature, including green criminology, which depicts pollution as crime and produces policies for the amelioration of pollution related victimization.

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Notes

  1. The scientific literature on pollution also distinguishes pollution in general from toxic pollution. Toxic pollution is defined as a concentration of pollution significant enough to produced negative health, behavioral, or negative ecosystem disruption (Spellman, 1999). Thus, it is possible for pollution to exist in a form that causes no immediate threat of harm, a situation that occurs when an emission is above its natural background level but below the concentration at which that substance produces harm, or when the pollutant does not cause harm because there is no exposure (Lynch and Stretesky, 2011). Crime cannot be described in this way. By its very definition, crime is always harmful and is defined by the very fact that it produces harm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Michael J. Lynch

  2. Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology Department, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USA

    Kimberly L. Barrett

  3. Department of Social Sciences and Languages, Northumbria University, Tyne and Wear, UK

    Paul B. Stretesky & Michael A. Long

  4. Department of Criminal Justice, Texas A& M University – Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX, USA

    Melissa L. Jarrell

  5. Department of Political Science, Texas A & M University – Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX, USA

    Joshua Ozymy

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  1. Michael J. Lynch
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Lynch, M.J., Barrett, K.L., Stretesky, P.B. et al. Crime as Pollution? Theoretical, Definitional and Policy Concerns with Conceptualizing Crime as Pollution. Am J Crim Just 40, 843–860 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-015-9294-6

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