September of

2022

Eco-criminology
Illegal waste
Assignment nº 3 – Cultural Bias

RQ42: globalisation, digitalisation & crime

MATILDE PEREIRA JESUS DE GOUVEIA TEIXEIRA

Student ID: 661752
 As we have learned, criminology is endowed with a western cultural bias. “General”
criminological theories witness typically Western ideas of child raising and family life, whereas
a universal validity is claimed (Swaaningen, 2010). Despite this fact, the truth is that regarding
certain categories of crimes (or categories of harm1), such as ecological damage, even if
committed in restricted areas, the risk is global.

As Katja states, certain risks have unlimited temporal dimensions, and it is difficult to delineate
their social dimensions in terms of causes, affectedness, and responsibility (Katja, 2012).
However, the solutions presented continue to address essentially a cultural and socio-economic
context typical of Western countries.

In the West, environmental taxes and fines imposed on the industrial production and waste
disposal of multinationals and corporations are a recurring practice - which is positive. However,
the legal regulation and the means of punishment that fall on them, led them to "migrate" their
polluting production, or only their waste, to these countries where environmental concerns are not
a priority, turning these countries into the dumping of the world. This practice is an example of
what Cohen calls “malignant colonialism” (Cohen, 1982, cited in Swaaningen, 2021).

Europol has identified an increase in the volume of illegal waste shipments across
borders, spurred by economic growth and globalisation. Legal European companies manage to
process their waste cheaper and faster not only by circumventing the law, but also by resorting to
illegal companies (who "get rid" of the waste in non-Western countries), organized crime
(including, the mafia) or even creating their illegal parallel companies.

Regarding to illegal companies or organized crime, according to Europol, waste trafficking

groups usually have ethnic links to the destination countries (non-western countries). This is
relevant because it can be speculated that among the local population of the regions where the
waste ends up being disposed, a normalization of the situation in question can be pondered,
especially if this has economic advantages. If so, any attempts to apply the theory of reintegrative
shaming (Braithwaite’s, 1989, cited on Ruggiero and Nigel, 2013) may fail, as these groups do
not feel shame about what they are doing. This may be explained by a stigmatization (which is
on the opposite side of where the reintegrative shaming theory lies) within the social and cultural
group in which they belong.

1
When eco-crime is contextualised within notions of harm, we can observe a broadening of the gaze
beyond legal terrains to include discourses on risk, rights and regulation. As a result, eco-crime extends
existing definitions of environmental crime to include licensed or lawful acts of ecological degradation
committed by states and corporations (Walters, 2010, cited in Ruggiero & Nigel, 2013)

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Matilde Pereira Jesus de Gouveia Teixeira | Globalisation, Digitalisation & Crime
Furthermore, in relation to companies that use these routes to dispose their waste, it is also
difficult for them to feel any kind of embarrassment since everything is done anonymously and
without the public's knowledge and, therefore, they are not subject to public criticism.

However, this approach does not consider that for these companies discarding waste in regions
where, on one hand, their target audience is not, and on the other hand, there may even be a lack
of concern on the part of the local population directly harmed2 (many times because they don’t
know their being harmed), or even a lack of concern about public opinion by this companies.

Going forward, a greater international cooperation, so that all offenders are punished, or
at least visible to the public, since some authors claim that resorting to public criticism is even
more effective than fines or penalties, could help to reduce the problem. Moreover, this situation
could possibly be circumvented if there was a cultural shift and a profound social change (Benton,
1998), in a direction increasingly allied to the environment. This way, it could perhaps be possible
to break any normalization that still endures, as well as create within Western companies a greater
moral compass directed towards the environmentally sustainable on which all of humanity is
dependent and less of a money-oriented thinking.

2
I say directly harmed because we all are harmed by these practices, even if only indirectly.

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Matilde Pereira Jesus de Gouveia Teixeira | Globalisation, Digitalisation & Crime
References:
• René van Swaaningen, 2010, Critical Cosmopolitanism and Global Criminology
• Katja Franko, 2012, The Earth is one, but the world is not
• René van Swaaningen, 2021, Cultural Bias in International Criminology
• Vincenzo Ruggiero and Nigel South, 2013, Green Criminology and Crimes of the
Economy: Theory, Research and Praxis
• Ted Benton, 1998, Rights and justice on a shared planet: more rights or new relations?
• Europol warns of increase in illegal waste dumping, viewed online in:
https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/europol-warns-of-
increase-in-illegal-waste-dumping

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Matilde Pereira Jesus de Gouveia Teixeira | Globalisation, Digitalisation & Crime