Situational Crime Prevention and the Ecological Regulation of Green Crime: A Review and Discussion

Abstract

Situational crime prevention theory suggests the need for innovative, non-criminal-justice polices to control crime, but that approach has not been widely employed by criminologists addressing the control of environmental crime. Numerous examples of innovative environmental social control practices can be found outside of the criminological literature; but within criminology, such studies have most often been undertaken by conservation criminologists, while green criminologists have undertaken empirical studies illustrating the ineffectiveness of traditional, punitive responses to environmental crime. Here, we briefly review the use of situational crime prevention theory and research by conservation criminologists and provide examples of environmental social control policies used by various nations that are consistent with situational crime prevention arguments. We also note that research and theory in other disciplines suggest that crime is produced by larger structural economic forces, indicating that situational crime prevention alone is likely not sufficient to control environmental crime.