Impact of the Economic Crisis on Environmental Crime Trends in Slovenia

Abstract

The behaviour of the majority of people towards the environment coincides with the Rational Polluter Theory that was among the first presented by Emery and Watson (2004). The theory states that offenders weigh the "benefits (e.g. profit) and costs (e.g. fines)" of the committed act of pollution, and in the era of economic crisis, the profit is in a relation human - environment even more often put at the forefront. It can be perceived as avoiding the costs that are required by environmental legislation or the actual earnings from the sale of natural resources (nowadays this earning can actually be the individuals' only source of income for survival). Faced with the economic crisis, the authors addressed the question of 'whether the lack of financial resources has an impact on the growth of individual environmental crime acts in Slovenia for the reason to obtain the financial resources', on the basis of environmental crime trend analysis in Slovenia during the period 2000 to 2012, and conducted interviews with representatives of social control agencies and hunters. Results showed an increase in individual crimes against the environment, space and natural resources, such as cruelty to animals, poaching and destruction of forests (timber thefts) and the number of detected offenses against the environment, including illegal dumping of waste and fishing without a license. Findings show both a positive (i.e. decrease of environmental crime acts) as well as a negative (i.e. increase of environmental crime acts) impact of the economic crisis on the movements and trends in environmental crime. In order to minimize the negative impact, an increased surveillance of inspection services and police of detected offenders of environmental protection legislation and on the identified locations or areas of pollution or other illegal activities affecting the environment is recommended. Furthermore, the development of strategies and methods for detection and investigation of environmental crime, especially economic and organized environmental crime, is suggested; primarily because they not only cause tremendous damage and irreparable consequences in the natural environment, but they are also hard to detect, investigate and prove.