Geographic Variations in, and Correlates of Green/Environmental Crime Across US States: A Preliminary Assessment

Abstract

Despite increased interest in green/environmental crimes, little is known about these offenses, perhaps because traditional criminological questions and methods are typically applied to study street crimes rather than green crimes. For example, while the geography of street crime has long been studied, the geographic distribution of green crimes has been ignored. The current study addresses this issue using US EPA Environmental Compliance History Online data to construct measures of environmental crimes across US states. The geographic over-lap between the distribution of green crime and street crime at the state level is then examined. In addition, an effort is made to discover correlates related to the geographic distribution of green crime. We found that the distribution of street and green/environmental crimes are unrelated. Moreover, we found that the best predictors of environmental crime rates across states is US EPA region, suggesting these crime rates are organizationally constructed. Our study also indicated that two other factors helped predict the geographic distribution of green crimes: welfare expenditures (states with high welfare expenditures have lower rates of environmental crime); and the black-white population ratio: states with high white populations have less environmental crime, indicating a potential environmental justice issue.