Environmental Crime Victims under Criminal Justice System: A Study on the Development of Environmental Victimology

Abstract

Lack of attention to environmental crime victims under criminal justice system has led to the development of the study of environmental victimology. This study focuses to acknowledge victims’ losses as an impact of environmental crime and victimizationprocess. In the study of criminology, environmental crime is generated by environmental damaging activities, such as pollution, illegal hazardous substances dumping, land burning, illegal logging, etc. The damaging activities inflict harms not merely to the sustainability of the environment, but also to human and other creatures. Environment degradation has caused issues on health, economic, social, and cultural, as well as inequality. However, in some incidents, environmental crime is endorsed by state; the fact has created complexity in dealing with the crime. Furthermore, environmental crime is also related to other forms of crime, such as corruption and money laundering. Therefore, a multi-doors approach is established by involving several institutions to investigate the crimes. However, the approach does not sufficiently restore victims’ losses. The environmental victimology study is expected to enable criminal justice system to accommodate environmental crime victim’s interests for restitution or compensation. Therefore, this article overviews the widespread environmental crimes and the rise of attention to this issue. Consequently, it also describes the issue on criminal law enforcement to environmental crimes. Furthermore, it reviews environmental victimology study and the process of environmental victimization. Lastly, it analyzes the importance of environmental victimology study in arranging a policy on restoring the victims’ losses. The study employed normative legal research by applying statutory, comparative, and case study approaches.