Environmental and Wildlife Crime in Sweden from 2000 to 2017

Richard Stassen,Vania Ceccato

doi:10.1177/1043986220927123

Richard Stassen, Vania Ceccato

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986220927123

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Abstract

This study combines police records with newspaper articles (media archives) to report the nature and trends of environmental and wildlife crime (EWC) in Sweden from 2000 to 2017. Geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial statistical techniques are used to implement a temporal and spatial analysis of EWC in Swedish municipalities, which are split into three types: urban, accessible rural, and remote rural. Findings show that following the 2006 legal reform that increased possibilities for prosecuting EWC, the number of both police-recorded cases and newspaper articles increased and eventually stabilized. They also show that although the majority of EWCs are minor crimes, particularly in urban municipalities, many of the more serious crimes show chronic temporal and spatial patterns in more rural and remote areas. The persistence of certain serious crimes over time is interpreted as an indication that the costs of breaking environmental law are low relative to economic gains. Then, drawing from criminological theory, the article finishes by discussing implications to research and policy.

Highlights

Environment and wildlife crime (EWC) constitutes a broad category of offenses with no strict definition
The methodology for this study is divided into three separate components: (a) We looked at police-recorded EWC data to evaluate how the composition of reported crimes varied according to level of urbanization; (b) we assessed both data sets for temporal and spatial trends, and determined whether correlation exists along these dimensions; and (c) in the final phase of our analysis, we used the police records to implement a hot spot analysis to identify municipalities with consistently high levels of EWC
Their findings are mostly supported here, regarding the higher proportion of chemical EWCs reported in RR, compared with Accessible rural (AR) and urban areas (UAs)

Summary

Introduction

Environment and wildlife crime (EWC) constitutes a broad category of offenses with no strict definition. Official records tend to miss the true magnitude of EWC because detection often depends on citizen reporting and routine inspections, neither of which are likely to detect crimes that occur in more remote areas (but see Ferrara, 2012, for a look at newer aerial surveillance technologies that could be applied to EWC detection). Official police records of EWC may, be more reflective of the practices and policies that facilitate detection of EWC, rather than reflecting the true pattern of these crimes. An alternative is to supplement quantitative data sets with qualitative elements— this does not overcome the limitations in official EWC records, it can offer insight into the nature of EWC, which can inform interpretations of quantitative data

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