Critical Criminology: State‐Facilitated Corporate Crime, Environmental Racism, and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | SARAH PEDIGO KULZER,BRIAN PITMAN,STEPHEN T. YOUNG |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12437 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12437
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 323–342
Critical Criminology:
State-Facilitated Corporate Crime,
Environmental Racism, and the
Atlantic Coast Pipeline
SARAH PEDIGO KULZER, BRIAN PITMAN
andSTEPHENT.YOUNG
Sarah Pedigo Kulzer is Assistant Professor, Shenandoah University,
Winchester, VA., USA; Brian Pitman is Assistant Professor, University of
Maine, Orono, ME., USA; Stephen T. Young is Assistant Professor, Marshall
University, Huntington, WV., USA
Abstract: Critical criminology continues to focus on the intersections of race, class, and
green harms, as this analysis provides a more complete framework for understanding the
role of state violence in capitalist projects. This article utilises the frameworks of envi-
ronmental racism and state-facilitated corporate crime to analyse the proposed 600-mile
natural gas pipeline, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Wefocus on the narratives of the
corporations and state in pursuing the project, including dispelling the myth that natural
gas is ‘clean’. We also highlight the project’s disproportionate social and environmental
impact on poor and black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC) communities. We
end by discussing the state’s role in facilitating the project through the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Keywords: environmental racism; natural gas; state-facilitated corporate crime
The history of critical criminology as a subdiscipline of criminology con-
tinues to focus on race, class, green harms and corporate and state crime,
among other frameworks. The intersection of these factors supports a more
complete understanding of how capitalism uses state violence (in the form
of state-facilitated corporate crime) to harm communities and the envi-
ronment. This article utilises state-facilitated corporate crime and environ-
mental racism frameworks to analyse the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a
natural gas pipeline proposed in 2014 to go through West Virginia, Vir-
ginia and North Carolina. Our focus is on discussing the harms inherent
in the construction of pipelines and natural gas distribution. We outline
how both the companies and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC) ignored overwhelming evidence of the dangers of transporting
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2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 3. September 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 323–342
natural gas and the environmental racism of the project in North Carolina
and Virginia. This is important as the state and agencies like FERC are
commonly portrayed and viewed as regulatory bodies that protect people
from harm. Yet, critical criminological scholars have long known that this
protector status is a façade to ensure continued neoliberal domination of
particular communities as the regulations of harm are ‘inextricably inter-
twined with capitalist accumulation’ (White 2017, p.60). While Duke En-
ergy and Dominion Energy cancelled the ACP in July 2020, this case is still
important to analyse as the state and corporations will continue to use these
same tactics to justify similar capitalist and environmentally-racist projects
in the future. Ultimately, this discussion provides further evidence of the
importance of exploring the intersections inherent in critical criminology,
while maintaining the argument that these intersections should remain at
the forefront of critical criminological research.
Theoretical Orientations
This analysis uses a critical criminological perspective to assess the harms
caused by natural gas pipelines. As DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz (2012)
note: ‘critical criminologists view hierarchical social stratification and in-
equality along class, racial/ethnic, and gender lines as the major sources of
crime’ (p.1). Critical criminology rejects the various theoretical frameworks
of orthodox criminology (Potter 2015), while instead, relying on the the-
oretical frameworks of Marxist (Vegh Weis 2017), feminist (Chesney-Lind
and Morash 2013; Cook 2016; Musto 2019), Indigenous (Cunneen and
Tauri 2016, 2019), green (Lynch and Barrett 2015; South 2014), counter-
colonial (Agozino 2003; Carrington et al. 2019), queer (Buist and Lenning
2015), and other critical theories to analyse crime, harm and the criminal
legal system.
One way in which critical criminology challenges orthodox understand-
ings of crime is by advocating for the sociological understanding of be-
haviours that are as, or more, injurious than those that society defines for-
mally as crime (Kramer, Michalowski and Kauzlarich 2002). This frame-
work utilises the understanding of socially-injurious actions and harms,
expanding the spectrum of victimisation by including those who have been
affected both directly and indirectly by the harmful actions of corporations
and the state. We draw upon this foundation as a tool in analysing state-
facilitated corporate crime in combination with environmental racism. At
the heart of this nexus is state-facilitated corporate crime, which occurs
when the state creates or neglects laws that allow for corporate harms to
transpire. This includes crime commission as well as omission (Kramer,
Michalowski and Kauzlarich 2002; Rothe and Kauzlarich 2016). Given the
nature of capitalism and the inherent racism that creates and sustains it, the
capitalist state is ‘necessary if complexly committed to prioritizing the prac-
tices and values of profit accumulation above social values’ (Tombs 2012,
p.172). The prioritisation of capitalistic goals over the human condition
creates an environment rife for state-facilitated corporate crimes to oc-
cur.This is especially relevant when combined with the state-finance-racial
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2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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