16. Environmental Criminology
16.9 The Strengths and Limitations of Environmental Criminology Theories
Antonio Robert Verbora
Strengths
Environmental criminology theories can help shed light on our understanding of the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples have been systematically oppressed and colonised through use of laws, policies, and systems, including the Canadian criminal justice system. This is evident with the imposition of the Indian Act and legislated poverty. Environmental criminology theory can help explain why incarceration rates are higher amongst Indigenous peoples and why they over-represented in the canadian criminal justice system. There are powerful social forces that cause so many Indigenous peoples to be incarcerated in Canada. These include institutional racism and discrimination sanctioned by the police, courts, and corrections against Indigenous peoples. As a result, Indigenous peoples are more likely to be apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted. This is because of the many ways Indigenous peoples are policed, patrolled, and monitored. Further, Indigenous peoples commit crimes that are often more visible than those committed by non-Indigenous peoples. For example, street crimes (e.g., burglary) are more visible and charges and convictions are higher than for white-collar or suite crimes
Environmental criminology has been praised for the shift in its focus from criminals to conventional people (those who did not break the law), aiding in a better understanding of crime events and their prevention. Second, it has also rejected the evil-causes-evil fallacy by arguing that offenders make rational choices in crime situations and are born with similar natures. It challenges the view that evil is a condition that generates crime. Lastly, it also shows the benefits of a situational perspective and rejects the “nothing works” doctrine that suggests, the state can do nothing to reduce crime through the criminal justice system (Bruinsma et al., 2018). Environmental criminology theories have played a pivotal role in challenging the idea that it is impossible to reduce crime by embracing this goal and then identifying an array of effective prevention strategies (Eck, 2002). These theories have helped in illustrating that there are fresh ways of thinking about crime; still, there are some key limitations to be discussed.
Limitations
Environmental criminology theories can hinder our understanding of the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples. First, they have neglected the study of motivated offenders, treating them as a given in the crime event. These theories fall short in understanding the underlying and possibly motivating factors of committing a crime: systemic oppression, colonization, and legislated poverty within the settler state. A more detailed study of offenders could perhaps demonstrate the ways in which people become involved in crime events. That is, what are the conditions present that create an en