NCJ Number
171712
Journal
Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1996) Pages: 191-204
Date Published
1996
Length
14 pages
Annotation
Based on definitions of environmental victimization and environmental cause, this paper argues that such victimization clearly embodies a form of violence; the perception of violence by potential or actual victims further rationalizes violence in the form of "preventive protest" or resistance.
Abstract
The key element of violence is physical force, and environmental victims are defined as past, present, or future generations who are injured due to change in the chemical, physical microbiological, or psychosocial environment produced by deliberate or reckless individuals or by collective human acts. Outcomes of environmental victimization include skills deficits, economic demise, increased criminality, exploitation, breakdown in traditional structures, perception that life has no future, social apathy, loss of confidence in social institutions, reduced marriage and employment prospects due to a perceived genetic legacy, and false norms within communities where low intelligence and poor health become accepted facets of community life. Responses to environmental victimization often involve violence in two interrelated forms: (1) preventive protest to stop impending victimization; and (2) resistance to actual victimization in order to achieve change and possibly retribution. Based on an understanding of environmental victimization globally, it is possible to identify a generalized pattern in the evolution of victim responses: passive acceptance, confrontation and litigation, and either violent or nonviolent community environmentalism. Reports on environmental victimization in Ogoni, Nigeria, and Bhopal, India, and on environmental victimization related to French nuclear testing in the Pacific and antiroad protests in the United Kingdom are reviewed. Environment-related violence is broadly framed in terms of global security. 33 references and 1 figure