Digital policing of environmental crime: The need for ‘more-than-human’ criminology

• In Event: Digital Criminology: Alternative Futures

Abstract

The escalating climate crisis, coupled with new and updated regulatory frameworks are stimulating the adoption of algorithmic surveillance technologies in natural environments for crime control. Research has shown that the application of algorithmic surveillance for policing can lead to individual and social harms (Malik et al, 2022; Ugwudike, 2022; Van Brakel, 2021). Moreover, as algorithmic surveillance technologies enable practices centered on measurement, data collection, and automation, often driven by expert or elite actors, they can amplify existing environmental harms (Gabrys, 2020). The socio-technical contexts where these technologies are deployed —whether urban, rural, forested, or marine—shape the nature of potential harms, extending beyond those affecting humans alone such as animals, habitats, geomorphic figures and nature. Building on the premise that harms of algorithmic surveillance should be understood as rhizomatic (Van Brakel and Govaerts, 2024), drawing on insights from ‘more-than-human’ geography (Lorimer and Hodgetts, 2024) and on a first empirical exploration of International and European applications of algorithmic surveillance applications for digital policing of environmental crime, this paper argues for a ‘more-than-human’ criminology and governance approach that transcends the narrow confinement of individual-based harms and rights and allows for a more holistic examination and thicker understanding of the potential qualitative and quantitative impact.

Author

• Rosamunde Van Brakel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel