Giving the green light: corporate environmental crimes, the treadmill of production, and environmental justice

AbstractIn addition to legal considerations, what other factors correlate with and seem to affect fines companies are assessed when they commit an environmental crime? Relying upon the treadmill of crime theoretical framework we hypothesize that companies committing environmental crimes in poor and minority dominated communities will receive lower relative fines because the harms are viewed as less serious by prosecutors and judges, thus resulting in environmental injustice. In addition, from a green criminological framework, a company ’s economic situation may be considered in setting fines so as not to slow down the treadmill of production. Using a unique dataset of firms fined for environmental violations in federal criminal courts, we seek to determine if sentencing practices that are consistent with the treadmill of crime p erspective produce second-level environmental injustices. We conclude that the sentencing of corporations is handled in a manner consistent with predictions derived from the treadmill of crime theory and find as a result, in limited circumstances, environmental injustices are occurring.
Source: Crime, Law and Social Change - Category: Criminology Source Type: research