Hi Folks:

Our good friend and colleague Henry Brownstein has recently published the first book in the Routledge Series on New Directions in Critical Criminology. Titled Contemporary Drug Policy, this book will generate much critical thinking about drugs and social control. Please check it out. Also, Joseph Donnermeyer and I have a new book in the same series titled Rural Criminology. It should be out in the fall and more information on this project and other books in the series can be found at
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415634380/

Best,

Walter

The website for the International Green Criminology Working Group is now online. Membership in the group is free. The purpose of the website is to promote intellectual exchanges between those interested in green crime and justice.

greencriminology.org

In this post I draw upon environmental lessons offered by Dr. Seuss in The Lorax, and James Lovelock, an environmentalist, to explore the intersection of environmental issues, political economy, and criminology. The Lorax, published in 1972 was published two years before Lovelock’s well know Gaia Theory. Both works explore deteriorating environmental conditions in relation to expansion of economic development.

The messages produced by non-scientific climate change skeptics are changing. These messages were in full display in a recent public statement made by ExxonMobil Chairmen, President and CEO, Rex Tillerson, who insulted the public and the media, excused harms done to people living near hydraulic-fracturing sites, said that global warming was real but not as serious as believed, and mis-represented the support MIT scientists would provide for his position. Its all a few minutes work for the corporation that has long denied that global warming was even happening.

Evidence of Widespread Green Victimization and the Treadmill of Production:
Areas of Concern Uniting Radical Criminology, Green Criminology and the Political Economy of Environmental Crime.

Michael J. Lynch
Department of Criminology
University of South Florida

This brief article briefly explores some examples of green victimization in the modern world that critical criminologists can examine with the aid of treadmill of production theory (ToP). ToP theory provides an important way to unify radical and green criminology and promote examination of some of the most serious crimes and harms of our times -- green crimes and harms.

Herman and Julia Schwendinger have published a new book, BIG BROTHER IS LOOKING AT YOU, KID! IS HOMELAND FASCISM POSSIBLE which thay are making available free of charge.

The book is a political treatise but it may be interesting academically
because of its analytic constructs. It employs their "Janus model" of
governance and a category entitled "customary repression," referring to the
normalized century-old repression of left-wing ideas and policies. It
chronicles the qualitative changes in customary repression from the 1970s
and employs "parallels" (with the rise of fascism in Germany, Italy, Chile,
etc.) to realistically evaluate neofascist developments in the USA. It
points out that "bullshit" is the modus operandi of archconservatives
reviving McCarthyism in American universities. It describes, among other
things, the astonishing expansion of surveillance technology, the "Miami
model" of police brutality, the rise of Occupy Wall Street, and Obama's

In September of 2011, Lisa Jackson, head of the US EPA, released a statement on enhancing the ozone pollution requirements in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (http://www.epa.gov/glo/actions.html) to better protect public health. In that statement, she noted that the under the Obama Administration, the EPA has worked to enhance environmental protection. And while Lisa Jackson may be working hard to protect the public's health, President Obama hasn’t been cooperating. In a meeting with Jackson on November 16th, Obama told Jackson that the Administration could not afford to support a stricter ozone pollution standard at this time because of its potential effect on the President in the upcoming election. Obama said that the rule, set for reconsideration in 2013, would be on the table if he were re-elected. For more details see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/science/earth/policy-and-politics-coll...

In this post I examine the recent data on carbon dioxide pollution, the meaning of that data, and discuss the issue of global warming and environmental pollution from a critical criminological perspective.....

"In early November, 2011, the United State Deportment of Energy . . .released its most recent data and survey updates on world carbon dioxide emissions . . . .The news contained in that report isn’t good: carbon dioxide pollution emissions jumped 6% in 2010 compared to 2009. About 50% of those emission increases can be linked to emissions in the US and China. The graphs at the end of this article depict the trend in carbon emissions since the 1950s, and show a current map (2010) of carbon emission levels by nation."

Michael J. Lynch
Professor, Department of Criminology
Associated Faculty, School of Global Sustainability
University of South Florida

The Hosue has passed HR 2018 in an effort to limit the powers of the EPA, and that's not good for the health of Americans, nor is that consistent with their effort to undermine the specific intent of the Clean Water Act. Read why.

For those interested in the area of green criminology, the International Green Criminology Work Group has been formed. The groups meets at ASC and other major venues. At this point the group members' primary form of communication and the main thrust of the group is a listserve. If you are interested in joining, email Paul Stretesky
at: paul.stretesky@ucdenver.edu
with the subject heading: Joining Green Crim Work Group

New Incinerator Rule Implementation Postponed By EPA: Obama’s New Conservative Environmental Approach.

Michael J. Lynch
Department of Criminolgoy and
School of Global Sustainability
University of South Florida

The G.W. Bush Administration is widely regarded as having established the worst environmental record of any Administration since the founding of the EPA during Nixon’s presidency. The election of Obama brought great hopes for a redirection in environmental policies in the US. In some ways, the Obama Administration has delivered on those hopes revising, for example, the outdated and fairly stagnant fuel economy standards.

Historically, babies born in Kettleman City, CA have been healthy. But in the past three years, eleven babies have been born with birth defects, and three have had serious enough defects to lead to their deaths. Many of the residents live below poverty, and a number are migrant workers regularly exposed to pestides and pesticide pollution. Kettleman's water sources are also contaminated. There is also a nearby landfill, the largest landfill in the US west of Alabama. These two large landfills in Kettleman and Alabama are both operated by Waste Management Incorporated. Waste Management has proposed extending the size of the Kettleman landfill by 50%. Residents have attempted to block Waste Management's request, and this endeavor is an excellent example of environmental justice in action.

For further details see:
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/07/kettleman-city-toxic-birth-de...

Bjorn Lomborg, a noted critic of global warming research and author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," has altered his position, recently noting that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront". In his newest book, to be released new month, Lomborg details the need to invest in policies that address global warming, which he argues could solve the problem by the end of this century. Lomborg argued that as much as half of the needed funds can be generated by taxes on carbon emissions.

For further details see http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-...

critcrim.org visitors and friends

Many of the books that have been highlighted on this site were written by members of the Division or Section. In some cases links were added at the request of the author. These links were removed in a previous version of this site, and I was encouraged to bring them back, so I want to explain the recent decision to remove the links.

The following article describes the wider issues, but the short version is that I have never been totally comfortable with these advertisements and am reluctant to continue directing sales to this particular company. I am working on alternatives that will allow us to continue the effort to highlight books of interest to critical criminologists.

The following, by David Serota, helps explain the context of this decision:

Ashgate Publishing will produce a new book series, Green Criminology, to promote original scholarlship
contributing to the expanded study of environmental harm, crime, law and justice from a criminological
perspective. Michael J. Lynch and Paul B. Stretesky will serve as series editors. The series is expected to
publish between three to twelve books per year. See attached annoucement for further details.

Keeping it Radical: Exploring Income, Income Inequality and Poverty Data for the US.
 
Michael J. Lynch (Department of Criminology, University of South Florida)
 

Here I try to make a connection between critical pedagogy and music.
http://musingsbydave.blogspot.com/2009/11/music-and-knowledge-part-i-of-ii-i.html?spref=fb

Let me know what you think!
Dave

Here is a list of all sessions found while searching the ASC program for Critical Criminology:
 
1. "A 'Critical' Approach to Teaching White Collar Crime: Challenges and Objectives", *William Calathes, New Jersey City University