This book provides an overview of crimes involving water, including pollution, illegal dumping, and supply chain disruption from a criminological perspective. It examines a multifaceted issue from a comparative policy perspective supplemented with individual case studies to provide insights on the magnitude of the problem as well as possible solutions and policy recommendations. As growing populations and economic sectors continue to put unprecedented pressures on water supplies, the book aims to contribute to a better understanding of the problem in order to ensure the sustainability, long-term viability, and equitable use of this essential resource. The first part of the volume examines criminological and policy perspectives, including an overview of regulatory approaches, privatization of water resources, and the scope of the criminal problem in this area. The second part presents informative case studies from a variety of different regional and social contexts. Finally, the editors present an outlook in policy and enforcement improvements. This work will be of interest to researchers in criminology, criminal justice, public policy, and comparative law, as well as those studying environmental regulations and sustainability. Water, Governance and Crime Issues is a much needed addition to the growing original contributions of green criminology. This volume captures the complex landscape of water crimes, including the numerous disparities and inequalities of there being too much water in some places and too little in others amongst the many complexities. The edited collection also covers conceptual issues (i.e. water as a human right) as well as practical hurdles (i.e. the challenges in keeping statistics on offences) and real world examples. Many of the chapters are likely to introduce readers to new issues and the interplay with a myriad of traditional problems – corruption, organised crime, privatisation, and terrorism. I agree with the editors and authors that water crime issues deserve further scientific study and this provides a solid starting point. -Dr. Tanya Wyatt, University of Northumbria Population growth and urbanization, more frequent droughts due to climate change, the privatization of and unequal access to water resources and increasing water pollution are just some of the contemporary and future challenges relating to water crimes. Water, Governance and Crime Issues speaks to the scientific relevance of water for (green) criminology as well as the policy implications of water crimes. Several of the cases in this edited book refer to countries and regions we do not usually hear about and yet are perfect illustrations of the challenges faced in governing and studying water crimes. -Dr. Lieselot Bisschop, Erasmus School of Law

This book details how the water quality of the Blesbokspruit River in Gauteng, South Africa was socially constructed by stakeholders and key individuals in the context of acid mine drainage (AMD) and its treatment. Social constructionism is used as the framing for this research to explain how water is intrinsically social. Findings presented here show that stakeholders are aware that the changes in the physicality of the Blesbokspruit resulted from human interventions and varied uses of the water over the years. Such knowledge, among factors such as the historical context of mining, current coal mining, flows and volumes of water, technology used and processes followed, information and communication, and vested interests influence social constructions of the water quality. What counts as the truth about water varies depending on the individual’s perspective, their purpose, and their individual interests. Further, how one defines water quality influences what treatment processes are preferred in order to improve water quality. The book explains why, for example, a treatment process meant to improve water quality gained a bad reputation by the public because of the South African government’s silo approach. The book explains how these social constructions are entrenched in power relations between stakeholders regarding AMD treatment and illustrates how power was used to influence decisions to improve the water quality of the Blesbokspruit. The case presented in this book offers insights and recommendations for policymakers working in water governance, including means to influence social constructions of water quality and ways to clarify roles and responsibilities in pursuit of improved cooperative government.

This book presents a socio-criminological study of environmental crime in the global South. It gathers contributors from all the regions of the geographical global South (Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America) to discuss instances of environmental crime and conflict. Overall, it seeks to further decolonise the knowledge production of green criminology. It considers the legacy of colonisation, North-South and the core-periphery divides in the production of environmental crime, the epistemological contributions of the marginalised, impoverished, and oppressed, and the unique contexts of the global South. This book has three sections: drivers of green crime in the global South; responses to environmental harm in the global South; and global dialogues about crime and destruction in the global South. The first two sections represent the breadth of the topics that green criminologists have historically studied but from unique perspectives. The third section explores ethical and decolonial ways for Southern green criminology to collaborate with Western academia. This book speaks to scholars in criminology, political ecology, decolonial theory, along with the many readers interested in the interactions between humans and nature.

This edited volume brings together the most recent research about various aspects of organized crime and the responses that have developed worldwide as a result to contain serious criminal acts. This book focuses particularly on the way criminal networking and illegal markets have developed during the first two decades of the 21st century. It examines how these developments have influenced the motivations and opportunities to commit organized crime. The volume not only focuses on illegal activities in illegal markets, such as drug and human trafficking, but also addresses organized crime and deviance in various legitimate industries. The contributions were presented at seminars of the Centre for Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC), and will be of particular interest to organized crime scholars and researchers, as well as advanced students of criminology across the world.

The key reference guide to rural crime and rural justice, this encyclopedia gives 70 concise and informative synopses of the key issues in rural crime, criminology, offending and victimisation, and both institutional and informal responses to rural crime.

Rural Victims of Crime offers a pioneering sustained assessment of ‘the rural victim’. It does so by examining and analysing the conceptual constructs of a victim and challenging the urban bias of victimisation and victimology in criminological study. Indeed, far too much criminological scholarship is based on the false assumption that rural areas are relatively crime free – and thus free, too, of victims. Providing international perspectives, chapters in this edited collection focus centrally on notions of place and space, and constructions of rural victims in a variety of contexts, exploring the impact that geographic location has on the type and prevalence of victimisation. The concept of victimisation is often considered in terms of interpersonal relationships between humans, neglecting the potent impact of victimisation of non-humans and the natural and built environment. Rural Victims of Crime discusses existing notions of victimology in relation to non-human subjects, broadening conceptualisations of the victim and associated impacts resulting from victimisation. Structured in three parts, Rural Victims of Crime conceptualises the rural victim, enhances understanding of the realities of rural victimisation and considers both formal and informal responses to rural victimisation. Chapters are accompanied by practical, contemporary case studies to connect theory with praxis. This book is an essential and valuable resource for academics, students and practitioners alike in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, rural studies, victimology, geography, sociology and spatiality.

This book explores African domestic and regional responses and approaches to environmental protection and sustainability. Written by African experts, the collection consists of five parts covering the whole of Africa. It provides broad coverage of specific themes, including environmental constitutionalism, climate change, gender and the environment, wildlife trade, environmental justice, and human displacement. The key aims are first, to explore theoretical and empirical studies to interrogate and provide clarity on academic discourse on how and whether environmental human rights approaches and policy implications have effectively enhanced environmental protection and sustainability at African domestic levels. Second, to investigate and present innovative solutions on how African domestic legal regimes deal with environmental justice, natural resources governance, refugees’ environmental rights, and climate-induced displaced persons. Finally, to propose innovative legal and institutionalised solutions to Africa’s ecological realities by determining the legal and regulatory gaps on environmental human rights issues on the continent. The collection will be a valuable resource for researchers, academics, and policymakers in human rights law, environmental law, political science, ecology and conservation, environmental management, disaster management, and development studies.

Bringing together an international group of authors, this book addresses the important issues lying at the intersection between urban space, on the one hand, and incivilities and urban harm, on the other. Progressive urbanisation not only influences people’s living conditions, their well-being and health but may also generate social conflict and consequently fuel disorder and crime. Rooted in interdisciplinary scholarship, this book considers a range of urban issues, focussing specifically on their sensory, emotive, power and structural dimensions. The visual, audio and olfactory components that offend or harm are inspected, including how urban social control agencies respond to violations of imposed sensory regimes. Emotive dimensions examined include the consideration of people emotions and sensibilities in the perception of incivilities, in the shaping of social control to deviant phenomena, and their role in activating or suppressing people’s resistance towards otherwise harmful everyday practices. Power and structural dimensions examine the agents who decide and define what anti-social and harmful is and the wider socio-economic and cultural setting in which urbanites and social control agents operate. Connecting with sensory and affective turns in other disciplines, the book offers an original, distinctive and nuanced approach to understanding the harms, disorder and social control in the city. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to those engaged with criminology, sociology, human geography, psychology, urban studies, socio-legal studies and all those interested in the relationship between urban space and urban harm.

This timely book presents a carefully curated selection of essays to celebrate the career of Nigel South, Emeritus Professor at the Department of Sociology and Criminology of the University of Essex, and one of the leading figures in his field. Through his long career, still ongoing and flourishing, Nigel has contributed knowledge in many areas of criminological scholarship and challenged the confines of the discipline, opening up new directions for thinking and debate. In this volume, Nigel’s close colleagues and friends celebrate his exceptional career through essays that draw on, or have been inspired by, his earlier or most recent work. Spanning across the areas of policing, drugs, green, southern, and sensory criminology, these essays offer cutting-edge research and fresh conceptual insights honouring the work of an outstanding criminologist, colleague, friend, and human being. This volume will be of pivotal interest to students, scholars, and academics in the fields of sociology and criminology, as well as those with an interest in these areas more generally.

This edited collection, the result of an international seminar held at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Oñati, Spain in 2010, explores the potential legal and criminological consequences of climate change, both domestically and for the international community. A novel feature of the book is the consideration given to the potential synergies between the two disciplinary foci, thus to encourage among legal scholars and criminologists not only an analysis of the consequences of climate change from these perspectives but to bring these fields together to provide a unique, inter-disciplinary exploration of the ways in which climate change does, or could, impact on our societies. Such an inter-disciplinary approach is necessary given that climate change is a multifaceted phenomenon and one which is intimately linked across disciplines. To study this topic from the point of view of a single social science discipline restricts our understanding of the societal consequences of climate change. It is hoped that this edited collection will identify emerging areas of concern, illuminate areas for further research and, most of all, encourage future academic discussion on this most critical of issues.