16.3 Environmental Criminology and Green Criminology

A brief, albeit important, point to be made in this chapter is the differentiation between environmental criminology and green criminology. In 13 Green Criminology you will be introduced to this other branch within the discipline. The major misperception between both areas of study stems from the complexities involved in defining each branch of criminology. Further, various scholars have either adopted a definition from influential authors in the field or have fashioned their own definition. With that said, it is challenging to find a concrete, agreed upon definition of both green criminology (Lynch, 2020; Verbora, 2015) and environmental criminology in general (White, 2013). For brevity purposes, green criminology represents the branch of criminology that deals with research into criminality against the environment and associated phenomena (e.g., animal cruelty) (Fitzgerald et al., 2013; Fitzgerald et al., 2016). On the other hand, environmental criminology is a branch of criminology that deals with researching physical and social determinations of patterns of criminal behaviour and is closely connected with situational crime prevention (White, 2013).