Death Matters: Victimization by Particle Matter from Coal Fired Power Plants in the US, a Green Criminological View Michael J. Lynch • Kimberly L. Barrett Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The present study examines deaths and diseases associated with pollution from coal fired power plants (CFPPs) and compares the volume of those deaths and diseases to deaths and injuries associated with street crimes. This comparison illustrates that the single form of pollution studied here—CFPP small particle pollution—causes more deaths in the US than homicides and deserves additional criminological attention. We frame our examination of CFPP deaths and injuries in the corporate crime and green criminological literatures, and explore CFPP pollution as an example of corporate environmental violence. The widespread nature of CFPP violence justifies focusing greater criminological attention on this issue, including the development of policies for remedying pollution, which is now a ubiquitous problem with severe health consequences. In a 2010 study prepared for the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), Abt Associates estimated the various health harms associated with small particle matter emissions (PM \ 2.5) from approximately 500 coal fired power plants (CFPPs) in the US. CFPP emissions cause numerous detrimental health consequences. Criminologically speaking, the importance of the CATF study is that it allows green criminologists to address a specific empirical indicator of green victimization, an issue that has not been widely addressed in the green criminological literature (Lynch 2013). Of particular relevance are indicators of green victimization found in the CATF/Abt studies that estimate the volume of disease and death associated with CFPP pollution. Here, we compare CFPP harms to the volume of street crime victimization in the US. M. J. Lynch (&) Department of Criminology and The Patel School of Global Sustainability, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620-8100, USA e-mail: radcrim@tampabay.rr.com K. L. Barrett Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology Department, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI 48198, USA e-mail: KBarret7@emich.edu 123 Crit Crim DOI 10.1007/s10612-015-9266-7