Victimización en delitos contra los ecosistemas y los animalesPercepción del daño y su reparación por parte de las personas internas en prisiones españolas.

Abstract

Within the research project Restorative justice for crimes against the environment and animals: Design of prevention, intervention and reparation programs in a globalised framework, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and within the framework of green victimology, we present the results of the content analysis of in-depth interviews to inmates imprisoned in Spain for crimes against the environment, natural resources or animals. That data is supplemented with interviews to prison staff. In an innovative way, we have used a data collection protocol adapted to the questions that usually structure a restorative process: what happened, how did it impact, and how can the harm be repaired? The general objective is to inquire about the adequacy of restorative justice. Among the results of the interviews, some common themes stand out, such as: the selective use of informal and formal social control, including restorative justice; the clash of two cultural worlds (rural and urban), notwithstanding the current blurring of their boundaries; and the diversity of values between some economic activities, as well as the treatment of animals in general, and environmental and animal activism. This activism, conflictive in itself, tends to demand more criminal law in the form of punishment, being its rationale the perception of the severity of this kind of harms, the vulnerability of the victims and the impunity.