The carbon footprint of crime in Victoria
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The carbon footprint of crime in Victoria Alexander Baird 1 & Morgan Burcher 1 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Climate change mitigation should permeate all areas of government policy, however; the Criminal Justice System (CJS) currently remains absent from Australia’s means of climate change mitigation with exception to the legislative reporting of carbon emissions in the provision of governmental reports. Anthropogenic carbon emissions are the scientific drivers behind climate change and arise from the energy consumption and lifecycle of objects used in criminological contexts, potentially hindering climate change mitigation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to quantify the first carbon footprint of crime in Australia using the state of Victoria as a case study. In doing so, an Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis is undertaken to discern common criminal offence types and CJS expenditures release over 480,000 t of carbon emissions across Victoria. Homicide attributes the highest carbon footprint per-incident out of each criminal offence in Victoria. Whilst security, drug abuse and police activity attribute the three highest carbon footprints out of all criminal offence types and CJS expenditures in Victoria from 2016 to 2017. The CJS has currently been overlooked in terms of climate change mitigation, therefore, this article highlights various sources of carbon emissions and prospective pathways to target for climate change mitigation. Keywords carbon footprint . crime . carbon emissions . criminal justice system and climate
change
Introduction Climate change is, if not the most, controversial and challenging issue facing mankind and the natural environment in contemporary society. This issue has been the subject of discussion and debate by scientists and scholars for decades and is only beginning to garner criminological attention. Green criminology refers to the study of crimes and harms committed against the natural environment, such as illegal waste dumping and * Alexander Baird [email protected]
1
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Baird A., Burcher M.
carbon pollution, and the associated impacts on human and non-human existence. It is also concerned with the political, sociological and cultural need for environmental protection, justice and sustainability [1–3]. In regard to climate change, green criminologists highlight that climate change will induce criminogenic forces post hoc; where the consequences of climate change such as water scarcity, food depletion and desertification will influence mankind to resort to criminality as a means of surviving and trading natural resources as organised commodities. All of which could create new barriers to uphold law enforcement and lead to an apartheid of individuals in post hoc climate scenarios [4–7]. In relation to this, Cohn [8] and Ranson [9] find hot weather to be a negative influence on an individual’s psychological state that may instigate criminal behaviour, ultimately increasing p
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