Psychologist and true crime presenter Julia Shaw joins Mongabay’s podcast to discuss her latest read, examining some of the highest-profile environmental crimes and why they occur, in Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet and How to Stop Them. She details the commonalities behind six major cases, and what can be learned from them, as described by six motivating factors: ease, impunity, greed, rationalization, conformity, and desperation. “As a psychologist, I was like, ‘What if we create a psychological profile of the various people involved with these various big crimes?’ And so that’s how I came to the Six Pillars because I was using a model from criminology, which is called Situational Crime Prevention Theory, and of looking at the factors that contribute to a crime being committed,” she says. While all six pillars played a role in the environmental crimes she investigated, Shaw says, it can be easy to jump to greed as the driving force in any given circumstance. But doing so doesn’t account for the nuance and incentives that motivate people to commit a crime, such as desperation. Environmental crimes are often committed by people who are exploited or financially challenged, such as in the case of illegal loggers, previously discussed on the podcast with Junglekeepers founder Paul Rosolie. Regulators, Shaw says, are the unsung heroes of combating environmental crimes, and bolstering funding of regulators (such as clean air and water regulators) is key to fighting crime equitably and fairly. Adopting cultural and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
New book unearths environmental crime’s psychological roots
