Julia Shaw

Julia Shaw on Green Crime

What is Green Crime and who are the people destroying the planet? How can we stop them? We will be welcoming Julia Shaw, author of Memory Illusion and Bi, to St Andrews to discuss these world changing issues.

Green Crime uses true crime stories and social science to fundamentally redefine our relationship with the planet and each other. It is a fresh, fascinating and rigorously scientific book that helps us to understand some of the biggest dangers of our time.
Rooted in her expertise as a criminal psychologist, Julia Shaw plunges the reader into the world of green criminology, applying insights from eco-psychology and environmental law to help disentangle why and how environmental crimes are being committed.

This book reframes and personalises issues that are often so vast that they cannot be comprehended. Each chapter follows a main criminal case to illustrate a different facet of how, and why, we are destroying the planet and justifying atrocities against humans along the way. For each case she asks: Who are the people behind environmental destruction and death? What are their, and our, justifications? Are these actions crimes? If not, should they be? What legal loopholes are they currently exploiting? And most importantly, how do we disarm the threats to our future?

Julia Shaw is a criminal psychologist at University College London. Her academic work, teaching, and role as an expert witness, focus on different ways of understanding criminal behaviour. She is the author of three books; Bi, The Memory Illusion and Making Evil. Her books have appeared in more than 20 languages. She is also the co-host of the hit BBC podcast Bad People which combines true crime and science. She appears regularly in popular press, including in TV true crime formats.