The Metro D.C. Environmental Network's Green Calendar & Environmental News Digest, April 1995:

Recently, Americans of many political persuasions have plunged into a spirited public policy debate concerning crime and violence, but environmentalists have stayed largely on the sidelines. Our discussions of crime have focused on corporate crimes such as the Exxon oil spill or environmental crimes such as illegal dumping. Even the environmental movement's growing concern with social justice has not extended very far into criminal justice.

But it should.

Crimes such as rape, robbery and murder pose a large and direct threat to the natural environment by forcing people to make lifestyle choices that poison the Earth and consume more resources. Fear of crime deters people from walking or biking, and motivates people to use taxis and private cars rather than buses and subways. Merchants resort to over packaging to reduce the risk of theft and product tampering. People leave their lights on when nobody's home, sometimes with the aid of electrical appliances to turn on the lights automatically. But crime's largest environmental impact is to drive people out of cities, which are very energy-efficient compared to suburban and rural areas. Since 1980, over 100,000 people have left D.C. for the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, clogging the roads with commuters and spreading development over areas that were woodlands, wetlands and farmlands just twenty years ago.

The other reason ecologists should get involved with fighting crime is that we have over 25 years of experience in protecting people from stupid and greedy behavior that threatens their health and safety. Some of the same ideas that can protect people from pollution can also protect them from crime.

For example, there is growing acceptance of the idea that neighbors have a right to know when a sexual predator is released into their community. This is a logical extension of communities' right to know if there are toxic wastes in their environment, a right ecologists have demanded for years.

Environmentalism also suggests an approach to gun control. Our society has not banned cars, but it has made them less harmful to the Earth by using available technology to increase fuel efficiency and decrease emissions. Guns, too, could be made safer. With existing technology, it would be easy to create guns that could not be fired without an access code. This would prevent criminals from using guns stolen from honest people, and would reduce the number of fatal accidents involving guns. An environmental approach to gun control would also allow victims of armed crime to sue manufacturers and retailers when they allow their guns to fall into the hands of criminals, just as environmentalists demand the right to hold the producers of toxic waste responsible for the damage their creations cause. Until now, crime has not been addressed as an environmental issue, but the parallels between environmental justice and criminal justice cannot be ignored. The solutions to many of America's urban problems could be found in ecological thinking.

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