European Journal of Policing Studies
Article

Wasting opportunities – prevention of illicit crossborder waste trafficking
Keywords waste crime, crime script, illicit waste trafficking, environmental crime, situational crime prevention
Authors Iina Sahramäki, Serena Favarin, Shanna Mehlbaum, Ernesto Savona, Toine Spapens en Terhi Kankaanranta
DOI 10.5553/EJPS/2034760X2017005002005
Author's information

Iina Sahramäki
Iina Sahramäki is a researcher at the RDI Department of the Police College of Finland. She has focused on cooperation between law enforcement agencies and the varied aspects of the crime prevention. She is also currently finishing her PhD at the University of Tampere on the prevention of environmental crimes.

Serena Favarin
Serena Favarin is assistant professor of criminology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and researcher at Transcrime – Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime of the same University. Her fields of interest include the analysis of illegal markets (e.g., counterfeiting, firearms, tobacco, waste), crime-statistics, and spatial analysis.

Shanna Mehlbaum
Shanna Mehlbaum is a researcher at the Tilburg University Law School. Her expertise covers the study of environmental crime, street crimes and organised crime, as well as police practices and multiagency cooperation. She is currently working on her PhD on serious waste crime in the Netherlands.

Ernesto Savona
Ernesto Savona is professor of criminology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and director of Transcrime – Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime of the same University. He is Editor in Chief of the European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research since 2003. His research activity has centered e.g. on organised crime, economic crime, law and social change, corruption.

Toine Spapens
Toine Spapens is Full Professor of Criminology at the Department of Criminal Law at Tilburg University. Spapens has done extensive empirical research on (organised) crime and its containment, and on international law enforcement cooperation. These studies include environmental crime, trafficking in illicit firearms, large-scale cannabis cultivation in the Netherlands, illegal gambling.

Terhi Kankaanranta
Terhi Kankaanranta is a senior researcher at the RDI Department of the Police University College of Finland (Polamk). Her work experience as researcher is over 13 years in the University of Tampere and Polamk. Her research expertise covers e.g. the analysis of economic and environmental crimes and economic crime investigation. (corresp: terhi.kankaanranta@poliisi.fi)

  • Abstract

      This study aims to construct a consolidated crime script of cross-border illicit waste trafficking by analysing similarities in modus operandi. In addition, factors enabling illicit waste trafficking were studied. Research questions were analysed from a situational crime prevention point of view by applying crime script analysis to 13 judiciary case studies of illicit cross-border waste trafficking obtained from the Netherlands, Italy and Finland. The findings suggest that the potential offender usually has advanced knowledge of the waste market and of the legislation and regulation. The case studies also suggest that the lack and misuse of appropriate licenses and falsified documentation, as well as taking advantage of illicit and licit networks in facilitating activities, are prevailing characteristics in the illicit cross-border trafficking of waste. Despite the small number of cases, the findings imply the need to focus crime prevention efforts on the early stages of the crime commission process, such as planning the crime.

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