Environmental crime in criminology: the development of a new branch of criminology in Slovenia

The aim of the paper is to place environmental crime within criminology and to define green criminology. This new field of research had already aroused the interest of criminologists several decades ago but has only been formulated into an integral discipline in the last twenty years. However, discussions about current issues of the environment, environmental threats and protection have been taking place both in Slovenia and elsewhere in the world for several decades. Since the development of green criminology has rarely been documented, the aim of the contribution is to analyse what is going on in this field. The findings indicate that this new branch of criminology has also been slowly but steadily developing and progressing in Slovenia, too, in spite of efforts to find appropriate definitions of its basic concepts. Green criminology, which is adapting to the needs of contemporary society and has accordingly become rapidly ever more international and globalized, attributes major importance in the process of criminalisation to the role of inequality, power and politics; it increases interest in victimization and violations of human rights, and tries to find and develop various forms of crime prevention. All this has an impact on the emergence of new trends in the field of criminology. The social engagement of criminologists, their research into environmental crime and their cooperation with practice have an impact on the further development of criminology within this discipline and on collaboration with other disciplines. Criminologists in this way exercise an important influence on the very development of green criminology and also on the formulation of environmental protection policies.