"Whenever you read, watch, or listen to the news, you're likely to be exposed to stories of violence and murder. As a criminal psychologist, I'm often asked to comment on these cases to pick apart the motives of the perpetrators. People want these kinds of insights because murders feel frightening and horrifying, but also oddly compelling. There's a level of focus and fascination, and the way these crimes are covered profoundly influences our perception of what the most urgent problems facing society are."
"At the moment such crimes can, mistakenly, feel distant and abstract. If someone came into your flat and set fire to your furniture, stole your valuables, killed your pet, added poison to your water what would you do? You'd be terrified. You'd go to the police. You might want revenge. You'd certainly want justice. It would be entirely obvious to you that a crime had been committed."
Murders and violent crimes receive intense media attention that focuses public fascination and shapes perceptions of urgent societal problems. Environmental crimes such as releasing noxious gases, cutting protected forests, illegal fishing, and river pollution cause concrete injury and broader harms to biodiversity and climate. Environmental harm often feels distant and abstract because different types of environmental wrongdoing are conflated and moral distinctions are blurred. If environmental crimes were framed as clearly personal, immediate attacks—like arson, theft, poisoning, or killing a pet—the public reaction would include fear, calls to police, and demands for justice. Stereotypes of "evil corporations" simplify complex causes and impede recognizing environmental crime's scale and moral urgency.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]