Green crime | AQA A-Level Sociology
Updated: Aug 28
For Specification 7192
AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 60 to 70 minutes
Green crime raises an important sociological question: should something count as crime only when it breaks the law, or can serious environmental harm also be treated as criminologically significant? This Green crime A-Level Sociology revision page examines competing definitions of environmental crime, its relationship with globalisation and corporate power, and the difficulties sociologists face when trying to measure it. Green crime is explicitly required within AQA Crime and Deviance and follows naturally from global crime [Globalisation and crime] and earlier debates about definitions of crime [Crime and deviance].
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Define green crime as a sociological area of crime and deviance.
Explain the difference between legal and broader harm-based approaches to defining green crime.
Analyse why environmental crime is difficult to define and measure.
Explain relationships between green crime, globalisation and corporate power.
Evaluate sociological explanations of environmental harm and its criminalisation.
Apply knowledge of green crime to unfamiliar examination contexts.
Revision Notes 📚
Green crime A-Level Sociology revision
AQA explicitly requires students to study green crime as part of Crime and Deviance. This topic should be examined through the wider course themes of socialisation, culture and identity, and social differentiation, power and stratification.
Green crime is particularly important because it challenges apparently simple ideas about what counts as a crime.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme recognises that there is no single agreed definition of green crime and distinguishes between definitions based on illegality and broader definitions.
This produces the central debate of the topic:
Should environmental behaviour count as green crime only when it is illegal, or should serious environmental harm also be considered even when no criminal law has been broken?
What is green crime?
Green crime concerns crime and harmful behaviour connected with the environment.
The sociological significance of the concept lies partly in disagreements about how widely it should be defined.
A narrow approach focuses on whether an action is illegal.
A broader approach asks whether an action causes significant environmental harm, even where criminal law does not classify it as an offence.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme explicitly identifies this difference between definitions based on illegality and broader definitions when discussing why green crime is difficult to measure.
This means green crime brings together two questions:
What behaviour breaks environmental law?
What behaviour causes environmental harm?
These questions do not always produce the same answer.
Legal definitions of green crime
A legal definition treats environmental behaviour as crime when it violates criminal law.
This has an obvious advantage: it gives researchers a relatively clear formal boundary.
If an act is prohibited by law, it can be classified as criminal within that legal system.
However, AQA identifies a major problem with this approach:
environmental laws differ between countries.
An environmentally harmful activity may therefore:
be illegal in one country;
be regulated differently in another;
fall outside criminal law elsewhere.
This makes green crime particularly important for understanding the social construction of crime.
Broader definitions based on environmental harm
A broader definition does not limit attention to behaviour that has already been declared illegal.
Instead, it asks whether behaviour causes environmental harm.
This expands the sociological focus beyond the criminal law itself.
The distinction can be summarised as:
Legal approach | Broader harm approach |
Focuses on behaviour prohibited by law | Focuses more widely on environmental harm |
Provides a formal legal boundary | Can include harmful behaviour not criminalised |
Depends on the laws operating in a particular society | Questions whether law captures all significant environmental damage |
Easier to identify what officially counts as crime | Creates greater disagreement over where the boundary should be drawn |
Neither approach removes all difficulties.
The legal approach can exclude harmful behaviour that has not been criminalised, while the broader approach creates a harder question about exactly what level or type of harm should count.
Green crime and the social construction of crime
The disagreement over definitions demonstrates that crime is socially constructed.
A behaviour does not enter official crime statistics simply because it causes harm.
It must first fall within a relevant legal definition, be detected and be recorded.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme directly describes international differences in environmental crime rates as socially constructed, because environmental laws vary between countries.
A simple chain is:
environmental behaviour → legal definition → detection → recording
Each stage can affect whether environmental harm becomes visible as official crime.
This develops the ideas introduced in crime and deviance [Crime and deviance], where you examined how definitions of crime depend on society.
Why environmental harm matters sociologically
Environmental harm creates a particularly difficult challenge for conventional legal definitions.
If sociology considered only what is already illegal, it might overlook behaviour that:
harms the environment;
affects animals;
crosses national borders;
is difficult to detect;
is carried out by powerful organisations;
remains outside or beyond effective law enforcement.
AQA's mark scheme recognises several of these problems directly.
This means green crime is partly about power to define and record harm, not simply the environmental behaviour itself.
Green crime and globalisation
Green crime has an important global dimension.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme states that green crimes may involve companies and countries in different parts of the world, creating difficulties about how and where they should be recorded when they cross legal boundaries.
This connects directly with globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime].
Environmental harm may not fit neatly within the boundaries of a single state.
The basic relationship is:
activity in one place → environmental consequences across wider areas → multiple legal jurisdictions
This can make:
defining responsibility difficult;
detection difficult;
comparison between countries difficult;
enforcement more complex.
Different laws in different countries
Environmental law is not globally identical.
AQA specifically recognises differences between countries as a problem when measuring green crime.
Suppose the same environmentally harmful activity occurs in two countries.
If:
Country A defines it as criminal;
Country B does not;
then official crime statistics could record a green crime in one country but not the other.
The behaviour may be similar, but the legal classification differs.
Therefore:
different laws → different recorded crime rates
This is why cross-national comparisons must be interpreted cautiously.
Green crime can cross legal boundaries
Many conventional offences can be linked to a particular legal jurisdiction relatively easily.
Environmental harms may be more difficult.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme states that green crimes may cross legal boundaries, causing problems about how and where they are recorded.
This creates several questions:
Which country should investigate?
Which country's law should define the behaviour?
Where should the offence appear in statistics?
What happens where different states apply different standards?
These questions show why environmental crime connects so strongly to globalisation.
Global cooperation and green crime
Globalisation does not only make environmental crime more difficult to control.
It can also create opportunities for international cooperation.
AQA's 2023 Paper 3 item explicitly states that states may cooperate in tackling international crimes such as green crimes and human-rights abuses.
This creates an important evaluation:
global interconnectedness may facilitate environmental harm, but it may also facilitate international responses to that harm.
The relationship is therefore not simply:
globalisation = more green crime.
It is more complex.
The issue of crimes involving state power is developed further in human rights and state crimes [Human rights and state crimes].
Corporate power and green crime
Power is central to sociological explanations of green crime.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme explicitly recognises that capitalist corporations may have the power to conceal the extent of their environmental damage, preventing green crime from appearing in official statistics.
This raises a conflict-based sociological question:
Are all environmentally harmful actors equally likely to have their behaviour identified and recorded as crime?
Powerful corporations may possess resources that less powerful offenders do not.
This can affect:
visibility;
detection;
public knowledge;
official recording.
A conflict explanation of green crime
Conflict approaches focus on inequalities of power.
Applied to green crime, the argument is that powerful organisations may have a greater ability to:
influence how harm is defined;
avoid detection;
conceal environmental damage;
prevent behaviour from appearing in official statistics.
AQA's evidence directly supports the importance of corporate power in the concealment of environmental harm.
The sociological chain is:
unequal power → unequal ability to conceal or avoid criminalisation → distorted official picture of environmental crime
This provides an important connection with social class and crime [Social class and crime], where crimes associated with powerful groups may also be less visible in official evidence.
Capitalism and environmental harm
AQA's recent global-crime assessment material identifies Marxism, corporate crime, the global economy, manufactured risks, risk society and green crime among relevant sociological concepts for analysing crime in a globalised society.
This provides a wider sociological context for green crime.
A conflict or Marxist interpretation can focus attention on the relationship between:
economic activity;
corporate power;
environmental harm;
the ability to avoid or limit criminalisation.
However, the source material supports the role of corporate power most directly in relation to concealing environmental damage and affecting measurement.
Avoid making unsupported claims that all environmental harm is caused by one economic system.
Risk society and environmental crime
AQA's global-crime mark schemes recognise risk society and manufactured risks as concepts relevant to discussions that include green crime.
A manufactured risk is a risk created by human social or technological activity.
This can be relevant to environmental crime because some environmental harms are produced through modern economic, technological or organisational activity.
The sociological significance is that such risks may:
extend beyond the place where they originate;
affect large populations;
cross national borders;
be difficult for one state to control.
This reinforces the link between green crime and globalisation and crime [Globalisation and crime].
Evaluating risk explanations
A risk-based perspective is useful because it draws attention to environmental harms that may extend beyond conventional local crime.
However, it does not automatically answer:
who created the risk;
whether the behaviour was illegal;
who has the power to define it as crime;
why some harms are detected while others remain hidden.
For those questions, approaches focusing on power, law and criminalisation may provide a stronger explanation.
This is why green crime is best treated as a debate about both harm and social definitions.
Victims of green crime
Green crime also raises unusual questions about victimisation.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme recognises that green crimes may be described as difficult to record because the environment or animals cannot themselves report criminal activity.
This distinguishes some environmental harms from crimes in which an identifiable human victim can directly report what has happened.
Green crime may affect:
people;
animals;
the wider environment.
This broadens the question of who or what can be considered a victim.
You will consider sociological approaches to victimisation in more detail in victims of crime [Victims of crime].
Is green crime victimless?
The phrase victimless needs careful handling.
AQA's 2022 mark scheme accepts the point that the environment or animals cannot report an offence or may be unable to make criminal activity known.
The useful examination point is therefore about detection and reporting.
If environmental damage has no conventional human complainant, it may be less likely to enter official statistics.
Do not interpret "victimless" as meaning that environmental damage causes no harm.
The issue is that the harmed environment or animals cannot report an offence in the way a human victim might.
Why green crime is difficult to detect
AQA explicitly identifies difficulty of detection as a problem in measuring green crime.
If environmental harm is not detected:
it cannot be recorded in official crime statistics.
This creates a possible dark figure of environmental crime.
Factors contributing to low visibility may include those directly recognised by AQA:
cross-border activity;
lack of conventional reporting;
corporate ability to conceal damage.
This means an official green-crime figure may reflect not only the amount of harm occurring but also the effectiveness of detection.
Why green crime is difficult to measure
The 2022 AQA mark scheme identifies several distinct measurement problems.
Problem | Why it affects measurement |
No single agreed definition | Narrow legal and broader definitions identify different amounts of green crime |
Different environmental laws | The same behaviour may be legally classified differently between countries |
Difficulty of detection | Undetected environmental crime does not enter statistics |
Cross-border offending | It may be unclear where or how an offence should be recorded |
Corporate concealment | Powerful corporations may hide environmental damage |
Problems of reporting | The environment or animals cannot report harm in the conventional way |
These six points are all directly supported by AQA's 2022 mark scheme.
Definition affects measurement
One of the most important analytical relationships in the topic is:
how green crime is defined → how much green crime appears to exist
If a researcher uses only behaviour that is formally illegal, the measured amount of green crime will exclude harmful behaviour that falls outside criminal law.
If a broader environmental-harm definition is used, more behaviour may qualify, but researchers then need to decide:
what counts as environmental harm;
where the threshold should be drawn.
This is why AQA identifies lack of an agreed definition as a measurement problem, not simply a vocabulary issue.
Law, harm and power
Three concepts therefore sit at the centre of green crime:
Law
Determines which environmental behaviours are formally criminalised.
Harm
Allows sociologists to question whether legal definitions capture the full significance of environmental damage.
Power
Affects who can influence definitions, avoid detection or conceal damaging activity.
Together, these produce a distinctly sociological understanding:
environmental behaviour is not automatically transformed into official crime simply because harm exists.
The social processes of definition, detection and enforcement matter.
Green crime and corporate crime
Green crime may overlap with corporate crime where environmental harm is connected to the activities of corporations.
AQA's 2023 globalisation mark scheme includes both green crime and corporate crime among relevant forms of crime in contemporary global society.
The overlap is important because corporations may operate:
across national borders;
within different regulatory systems;
with substantial economic resources.
This can make both regulation and measurement more complicated.
The central focus should remain environmental harm rather than turning a green-crime answer into a general essay on corporate crime.
Green crime and state crime
Environmental harms can also raise questions about states, international regulation and human rights.
AQA places green crime immediately alongside human rights and state crimes within Crime and Deviance, and recent globalisation assessment material treats green crime and human-rights abuses as international crimes that may require cooperation between states.These links are developed in the next lesson, state crime and human rights [Human rights and state crimes].
For this lesson, remember that environmental harm can raise issues about:
national laws;
international boundaries;
corporate power;
state regulation.
Green crime and social control
Defining environmental harm as crime is only one stage.
Societies must also decide how environmental behaviour will be:
detected;
regulated;
recorded;
controlled.
This connects green crime to approaches to controlling crime [Crime control].
Environmental crime may be especially difficult to control where:
harm crosses national borders;
different countries use different laws;
powerful organisations conceal damage.
This shows why the definition of crime and its control cannot be separated completely.
Comparing sociological approaches
Approach | Main focus | Contribution to understanding green crime |
Legal definition | Criminal law | Gives a clear formal boundary but varies between countries |
Broader harm approach | Environmental damage | Captures harmful behaviour beyond criminal law but creates definitional difficulties |
Social construction approach | How behaviour becomes defined as crime | Explains why green-crime rates depend partly on law and recording processes |
Conflict / power approach | Unequal power | Highlights the ability of powerful corporations to conceal environmental damage |
Globalisation approach | Cross-border connections | Explains why environmental crime may cross jurisdictions and require international responses |
Risk approach | Human-created global risks | Draws attention to environmental harms linked to modern economic and technological activity |
The strongest answers use these approaches to debate the same issue rather than simply listing them.
Evaluating legal definitions
Strength
A legal definition gives a relatively clear basis for deciding what counts as an environmental crime.
Researchers can identify whether behaviour violates an existing law.
Limitation
Laws differ between countries.
Therefore, the same behaviour may be recorded as crime in one country and not another.
AQA explicitly identifies this as a problem when comparing green-crime rates internationally.
A legal definition may also exclude environmentally harmful behaviour that has not been criminalised.
Evaluating broader definitions
Strength
A broader harm-based approach allows sociology to examine environmental damage even when law does not classify it as criminal.
This can be particularly significant where powerful actors influence or avoid criminalisation.
Limitation
AQA's recognition that there is no single agreed definition shows the main problem.
If the definition becomes broader, deciding exactly what behaviour counts becomes more difficult.
This can reduce consistency in measurement.
Evaluating conflict explanations
Conflict approaches provide an important insight by focusing on power.
The AQA mark scheme specifically confirms that capitalist corporations may be able to conceal environmental damage and prevent it from appearing in official statistics.
This is useful because it explains why official figures may understate environmentally harmful activities associated with powerful organisations.
However, corporate concealment primarily explains:
invisibility;
detection;
recording.
It should not automatically be treated as a complete explanation of every form of environmental harm.
Evaluating global explanations
Globalisation helps explain why green crime can be particularly difficult to define and control.
Environmental activities may involve:
several companies;
several countries;
different legal systems;
consequences crossing borders.
However, globalisation also creates opportunities for states to cooperate against international green crime.
Therefore, the global character of environmental crime can create both enforcement problems and opportunities for cooperation.
Applying green crime in an examination
Green crime has already appeared as a 4-mark AQA Paper 3 question.
In June 2022, students were asked to outline two problems in measuring green crime.
For this type of question, you need:
problem + development
For example:
Identification: Different countries have different environmental laws.
Development: This means the same activity may be defined as criminal in one country but not another, making international green-crime statistics difficult to compare.
That is enough for a developed short-answer point.
Do not write an essay.
Building an extended argument
If a longer question asked you to evaluate sociological approaches to green crime, you could structure the response around a debate.
Legal definition: gives a clear boundary for environmental crime.
Evaluate: different national laws make comparison difficult.
Broader environmental harm: reveals behaviour excluded by formal law.
Evaluate: lack of an agreed definition creates measurement problems.
Power: corporations may conceal environmental damage.
Globalisation: offences cross legal jurisdictions.
Evaluate: international cooperation may improve control.
Judgement: green crime demonstrates that law, environmental harm and power cannot be treated as identical concepts.
This keeps evaluation focused directly on the definition and explanation of green crime.
Key Words 🔑
Key word | Student-friendly definition | How it may be used in an exam |
Green crime | Crime or harmful behaviour connected with environmental damage. | Use as the central concept when discussing environmental crime and harm. |
Environmental harm | Damage caused to the environment, including harm that may not necessarily be criminalised. | Use when comparing broader and legal definitions of green crime. |
Social construction | The idea that what counts as crime is shaped through social definitions and processes. | Use to explain why environmental crime rates depend partly on law and recording. |
Criminalisation | The process through which behaviour becomes legally defined and treated as criminal. | Apply when explaining why not all environmental harm becomes official crime. |
Corporate crime | Crime connected with the activities of corporations. | Use where corporate activity overlaps with environmental harm. |
Manufactured risk | A risk created through human social or technological activity. | Use when discussing environmental harms within contemporary global society. |
Globalisation | Increasing interconnectedness between societies across national boundaries. | Use to explain cross-border environmental crime and problems of jurisdiction. |
Detection | The process through which offending is discovered or identified. | Use when explaining why hidden green crime may not appear in statistics. |
Validity | The extent to which evidence measures what it claims to measure. | Use when evaluating whether official statistics capture the extent of environmental harm. |
Hints from the Examiner Reports 💡
The June 2022 examiner report contains direct lesson-specific guidance because AQA assessed green crime in Question 1.
Examiner hint: Learn specific knowledge about green crime. Examiners reported that some students did not have enough relevant green-crime knowledge to answer the question securely.
Examiner hint: Stay focused on exactly what is being asked. Some students drifted away from the focus of the question when asked about problems in measuring green crime.
Examiner hint: Do not overwrite a 4-mark answer. The 2022 report specifically identified overwriting on the green-crime question and recommended practising concise exam-style responses.
Examiner hint: Underline the key demand before writing. For a question such as "Outline two problems in measuring green crime", the target is measurement, not everything you know about environmental crime.
Examiner hint: For each 2-mark outline point, identify a clear problem and then develop why it creates difficulty. The AQA mark scheme awards two marks for each clearly outlined measurement problem.
Examiner hint: In longer evaluative questions elsewhere on Paper 3, AQA repeatedly warns against simple juxtaposition. Evaluation should explicitly show what an alternative perspective demonstrates about the strengths or limitations of the argument being assessed.
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Assuming green crime has one agreed definition
Why this is incorrect: AQA explicitly identifies the lack of a single agreed definition as a problem.
How to improve: Distinguish between legal definitions and broader environmental-harm definitions.
Mistake: Assuming all environmental harm is automatically a crime
Why this is incorrect: Behaviour only becomes legally criminal where relevant law defines it as an offence.
How to improve:
Ask two separate questions:
Does it cause environmental harm?
Is it prohibited by law?
Mistake: Assuming environmental law is the same everywhere
Why this is incorrect: AQA specifically identifies differences between countries' environmental laws.
How to improve: Use this as an evaluation of international green-crime statistics and cross-national comparison.
Mistake: Describing environmental damage without linking it to Sociology
Why this is incorrect: The examination is testing Crime and Deviance, not environmental science.
How to improve: Focus on sociological issues such as definition, law, harm, power, detection and criminalisation.
Mistake: Forgetting corporate power
Why this is incorrect: AQA recognises that powerful corporations may conceal the extent of environmental damage, preventing it from entering statistics.
How to improve: Link corporate power explicitly to detection and measurement rather than simply naming corporations.
Mistake: Treating globalisation only as a cause of green crime
Why this is incorrect: AQA also recognises that states can cooperate internationally to tackle green crime.
How to improve: Evaluate globalisation as creating both cross-border control problems and opportunities for cooperation.
Mistake: Saying green crime is victimless because nobody is harmed
Why this is incorrect: The AQA measurement point concerns the difficulty that the environment or animals cannot report an offence conventionally.
How to improve: Explain the consequence for detection and recording rather than claiming no harm exists.
Mistake: Turning a 4-mark green-crime question into an essay
Why this is incorrect: The 2022 examiner report specifically identified overwriting.
How to improve: For two 2-mark points, aim for:
identification + one clear development
then move on.
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
Define green crime. [1 mark]
Question 2
Explain one reason why environmental harm may not always appear in official crime statistics. [2 marks]
Question 3
Outline two reasons why the definition of green crime may differ between societies. [4 marks]
Question 4
Outline two problems in identifying the extent of green crime. [4 marks]
Question 5
Outline three reasons why green crime may be difficult to detect or measure. [6 marks]
Question 6
Read Item A and answer the question that follows.
Item A
An environmentally damaging activity may be prohibited by law in one country but treated differently in another. Sociologists may also use a broader definition based on environmental harm rather than relying only on criminal law.
Applying material from Item A, analyse two reasons why defining green crime is difficult. [10 marks]
Question 7
Read Item B and answer the question that follows.
Item B
Environmental harm may involve powerful corporations operating across national boundaries. Some environmental damage is difficult to detect, while organisations may have resources that make damaging activities less visible.
Applying material from Item B, analyse two reasons why official statistics may underestimate green crime. [10 marks]
Question 8
Read Item C and answer the question that follows.
Item C
Green crime raises questions about whether crime should be defined only through law or more broadly through environmental harm. Environmental activity may cross national boundaries, and powerful organisations may be able to conceal damaging behaviour. However, global connections may also enable states to cooperate in responding to environmental crime.
Applying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate sociological approaches to understanding green crime. [30 marks]
Answers and mark scheme
Question 1
1 mark for a clear definition referring to crime or harmful behaviour connected with environmental damage.
Example answer: Green crime concerns criminal or harmful behaviour involving environmental damage.
Question 2
Award up to 2 marks.
Example answer: Environmental harm may be difficult to detect. If the behaviour is not discovered, it cannot enter official crime statistics.
One mark for identifying an appropriate reason and one further mark for development.
Question 3
Award 2 marks for each of two clearly outlined reasons.
Possible answers include:
Different environmental laws: countries may criminalise the same environmental behaviour differently, producing different legal definitions.
Disagreement between legal and broader definitions: one definition may include only illegal behaviour while another includes wider environmental harms.
Crime is socially constructed: societies create different legal boundaries around behaviour, so the category of green crime is not identical everywhere.
Do not credit the same definitional point twice.
Question 4
Award 2 marks for each of two developed problems.
Possible answers include:
no single agreed definition of green crime;
differences in environmental law between countries;
difficulty detecting environmental offences;
offences crossing legal boundaries;
corporations concealing environmental damage;
difficulty of conventional reporting where the environment or animals are harmed.
One mark identifies the problem. The second explains how it affects measurement.
Question 5
Award 2 marks for each of three distinct problems.
Possible answers include:
Detection: Green crime may be hidden and therefore absent from official statistics.
Cross-border activity: Environmental harm may involve several countries, creating uncertainty over where and how it should be recorded.
Corporate concealment: Powerful corporations may possess the resources to conceal the extent of environmental damage.
Definition: Different legal and broader definitions produce different estimates of green crime.
Different laws: Variation in environmental law makes international comparison difficult.
Reporting: The environment or animals cannot themselves conventionally report offences.
Three genuinely different reasons are required.
Question 6
Students should develop both hooks from Item A.
Hook 1: different laws between countries
Crime is legally defined, but environmental laws differ. The same behaviour may therefore be counted as green crime in one country while remaining outside criminal statistics elsewhere. This makes cross-national definitions inconsistent.
Hook 2: environmental harm rather than illegality
A broader definition may include harmful behaviour that is not criminalised. This can capture environmental damage missed by legal definitions, but creates disagreement about which forms or levels of harm should qualify.
8 to 10 marks: Good knowledge and understanding of two problems, two developed applications of Item A and clear analysis of why green crime is difficult to define.
4 to 7 marks: Reasonable knowledge with some successful application and analysis, although one point may be stronger.
1 to 3 marks: Limited knowledge, weak use of the item or discussion of environmental issues without focusing on definition.
0 marks: No relevant material.
Question 7
Students should develop the two main ideas from Item B.
Hook 1: powerful corporations
AQA recognises that capitalist corporations may have the power to conceal environmental damage. This can prevent environmentally harmful behaviour from being detected or entering official crime statistics.
Hook 2: activity across national boundaries
Environmental harm may involve organisations and activity across different countries and legal jurisdictions. This can make responsibility, detection and recording more difficult.
Students may also develop the item's reference to hidden damage by explaining that undetected crime does not enter official statistics.
8 to 10 marks: Two developed applications of Item B and clear analysis of why official evidence may underestimate environmental crime.
4 to 7 marks: Some appropriate knowledge and item application with incomplete development.
1 to 3 marks: Limited knowledge or little effective application.
0 marks: No relevant material.
Question 8
This question requires knowledge and understanding, application, analysis and evaluation.
Indicative content may include:
Legal definitions
environmental crime as behaviour prohibited by law;
legal boundaries;
differences in environmental law between countries.
Students may argue that legal definitions provide clarity but can exclude environmental harm that has not been criminalised.
Broader harm definitions
environmental harm;
disagreement about the scope of green crime;
problems deciding what should count.
Students may evaluate whether a harm-based approach provides a fuller picture at the cost of a less precise boundary.
Social construction
laws vary between societies;
rates depend partly on legal definitions;
crime statistics are socially produced;
criminalisation.
This can be used to show why green-crime statistics cannot simply be read as a direct measure of environmental harm.
Power and conflict approaches
corporations;
unequal power;
concealment of environmental damage;
corporate crime.
Students may explain how powerful actors may be better able to prevent harmful behaviour becoming visible as official crime.
Globalisation
companies operating in several countries;
environmental harms crossing legal boundaries;
problems of jurisdiction;
difficulties measuring international environmental crime.
Students may also evaluate this using international cooperation between states.
Risk society
manufactured risks;
environmental harms associated with modern economic and technological activity;
risks extending across national boundaries.
This may be evaluated by asking whether risk alone adequately explains who produces environmental harm or how it becomes criminalised.
Measurement
no agreed definition;
different laws;
difficulty detecting green crime;
cross-border activity;
corporate concealment;
absence of conventional reporting.
25 to 30 marks: Sound, conceptually detailed knowledge of relevant approaches. Item material is applied accurately. Analysis and evaluation explicitly compare legal and broader definitions, consider power and globalisation, assess evidence and measurement, and reach a reasoned judgement.
19 to 24 marks: Accurate and reasonably broad or deep knowledge. Application is largely focused and some explicit evaluation is developed.
13 to 18 marks: Largely accurate but narrower knowledge. Application may be limited and evaluation may rely mainly on placing contrasting definitions or perspectives alongside each other.
7 to 12 marks: Limited and undeveloped knowledge, with weak application and little evaluation.
1 to 6 marks: Very limited relevant material or a general discussion of environmental problems with little focus on Sociology.
0 marks: No relevant material.
A strong conclusion should recognise that green crime exposes the limitations of treating criminal law and environmental harm as identical. Legal definitions provide clarity, but differences between countries and the ability of powerful actors to conceal damage mean official crime statistics may offer only a partial account. Broader harm-based approaches expose environmental damage beyond the law, although they create their own problems of definition and measurement. Green crime is therefore especially useful for showing how harm, law, power and globalisation interact in the social construction of crime.
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