Influence of socioeconomic factors on environmental crimes in the Brazilian Federal District

Abstract

Environmental damages and problems arise from complex processes made up of material and social factors. Different authors of green criminology, a branch that focuses on issues related to damages, transgressions and crimes against nature, advocate a conceptual approach related to poverty, poor health, corruption and corporate transgressions. Following such understanding, this study aimed to: i) check the influence of socioeconomic variables on environmental crimes recorded by the Brazilian Federal District Police between 2013 and 2016, and (ii) determine whether theories of traditional criminology apply to environmental crimes in the Brazilian Federal District - BFD. Socioeconomic data available in the District Household Sample Survey and records on environmental crime in BFD were subjected to multivariate regression and analysis of variance. Results indicated that people age range between "40 and 59 years old", residents who arrived in BFD after 2000 and per capita income were the variables that better explained environmental crime records. Results suggest that social and economic deprivation were not decisive to explain the occurrence of environmental crimes in BFD. A frequent relation between immigration and crime records points towards the theory of social disorganization, caused by community inability to or ganize themselves for the establishment of community self-controls.