Criminological Approaches to Residential Water-Restrictions: A 'Sensitising Perspective'

In many areas throughout Australia, water use is of prime concern and its management requires a complex grasp of a number of inter-related features. This article reflects upon Australian residential water restrictions in a criminological light. By underemphasising the ecologic and environmental impacts associated with breaches of residential water restriction schemes, the relevant harms are trivialised in scope and provide only a thin understanding of both the harm at issue and the underlying conditions which underpin the restrictions. Such regulatory frameworks operate to (1) frame the harm at issue in overly anthropomorphic terms as well as (2) concentrate on the instrumental impact of water-restrictions rather than providing a multi-dimensional understanding of those harms associated with breaching residential use. In light of such issues, this article discusses what is gained by viewing aspects of excessive water-use in terms of environmental harm