Green Criminology: Its Foundation in Critical Criminology and the Way Forward

Abstract

AbstractThis article outlines the field of critical criminology and how its development was essential for the development of green criminology. Through a personal trajectory, I use my experiences first as a student and later as Professor of Criminology at the University of Oslo as an entry point. I draw on my involvement with the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control to explore how critical criminology has influenced green critical criminology. Critical criminology, with its focus on the crimes of the powerful, is concerned with victims of injustice, and a social harm approach was, I argue, a necessary foundation for non‐speciesist, green critical criminology. The article concludes by elucidating the challenges for a green critical non‐speciesist criminology, which includes a presentation of my current research project, ‘Criminal justice, wildlife conservation and animal rights in the Anthropocene – CRIMEANTHROP’.