12. Social harm and zemiology

Hillyard, Paddy; Tombs, Steve

doi:10.1093/he/9780198719441.003.0013

Cited by 53 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“… 9. It is worthwhile to call attention to the field of Zemiology here. Zemiologists argue that capitalist states may fail to label certain behaviors as crimes because governments in these systems will always support profit making over the health and well-being of their citizens (Hillyard and Tombs, 2017; Tombs and Whyte, 2015). When authorities fail to formally label social harms by the powerful as crimes, we would expect the use of the above neutralizations to be even more effortless. …”

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confidence: 99%

The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States: Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending

Sohoni

Rorie

2019

Theoretical Criminology

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While the role of race has been heavily scrutinized in terms of minority involvement in crime, it has remained largely invisible for Whites despite indications that Whites are overrepresented as offenders in elite white-collar crimes. We propose a theoretical model detailing how “whiteness” encourages cultural adaptations conducive to elite white-collar crime in contemporary US society. Many middle- and upper-class US Whites live in environments of relative social isolation, both geographically (in terms of schools and neighborhoods) and culturally (as mainstream media largely reflect the lived realities of middle- and upper-class Whites). When this social isolation is combined with financial advantage, it serves to block the development of empathy toward outgroups and increases feelings of individual entitlement, which leads to the formation of crime-specific cultural frames that include neutralizations and justifications for elite white-collar crime. We argue that whiteness plays a role that is independent from (but exacerbated by) socioeconomic status, and is an important contributor to the generative worlds from which many white-collar criminals emanate.

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confidence: 99%

The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States: Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending

Sohoni

Rorie

2019

Theoretical Criminology

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“…Pemberton (2015: 32) has begun such an effort by noting 'we gain an understanding of harm exactly because it represents the converse reality of an imagined desirable state'. His approach is rooted in theories of human need, and others in the field of zemiology have advocated this as well (Copson 2011;Hillyard and Tombs 2017). However, based on the widespread environmental and ecological harms listed in this article, we argue that any theories of the 'good' must go far beyond mere human need.…”

Section: How To Rebuild the Harm Principlementioning

confidence: 85%

Rebuilding the Harm Principle: Using an Evolutionary Perspective to Provide a New Foundation for Justice

Gibney

Wyatt

2020

Int J for Crime, Justice & Social Democracy

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Following Mill’s (1859) definition, the ‘harm principle’ came to dominate legal debates about crime and the appropriate response of the justice system, effectively replacing official talk of morality in modern secular societies. However, the harm principle has collapsed without an accepted definition of harm or a method to adjudicate between competing claims. To address this, we propose a definition of ‘good’ derived from evolutionary perspectives. From this, a universal goal for society can be recognised, specific objectives to reach that goal can be listed, and a new definition for harm can be used to repair the harm principle and restore its ability to underpin criminal law and the principles of justice in society.

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“…I will not rehearse the arguments ‘for’ a social harm perspective here (see Hillyard and Tombs 2017), suffice to say that for all the problems associated with the latter perspective there are good reasons why it is a useful lens through which to view the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. A social harm perspective overcomes (or some might say augments ) the focus on crime and criminal law, which, in the context of fatal injury, tends to be on acts, usually between proximate individuals, alongside the establishment of intention behind these acts.…”

Section: Grenfell As a Site Of State‐corporate Violencementioning

confidence: 98%

Home as a Site of State‐Corporate Violence: Grenfell Tower, Aetiologies and Aftermaths

Tombs

2020

Howard J Crime Justice

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Focusing on the aftermaths and consequences of the Grenfell Tower fire, this article reveals the factors which combined to produce a fire that could have such devastating effects. Further, it delineates the discrete ways in which distinct types of harms -physical, emotional and psychological, cultural and relational, and financial and economic -continue to be produced by a combination of State and corporate acts and omissions. Some of these harms are readily apparent, others are opaque and obscured. It concludes by showing how failures to mitigate these factors constitute one manifestation of the more general phenomenon of 'social murder'.While research, writing and activism around the phenomena of corporate and State crime have burgeoned since they first reached mainstream academic attention in the 1960s, such crimes remain relatively obscured by the crimes of the usual suspects. This is despite the fact that corporate and State crimes and harms kill, injure, defraud, and poison many, many more people than so-called conventional crimes; moreover, they often do so relatively silently, with their role and mutual complicity rarely becoming apparent and, if attaining visibility, are rarely brought within the purview of crime, let alone violent crime (Tombs and Whyte 2015). Finally, if curiously, they are rarely exposed in relation to 'the home'.Here I cast a critical lens on a recent atrocity -the fire at Grenfell Tower in West London -and examine how we might focus on this as an instance of State-corporate violence. In indicating the ways in which a combination of State and corporate acts and omissions resulted in a fire producing a range of social harms, I bring to the fore how 'home' can be the site of State-corporate criminality and harm.The article begins by setting out some of the key parameters of corporate crime, then State-corporate crime, before indicating why, and how, many of these are best understood as crimes of violence. The main sections of 120 C

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12. Social harm and zemiology

Cited by 53 publications

References 0 publications

The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States: Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending

The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States: Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending

Rebuilding the Harm Principle: Using an Evolutionary Perspective to Provide a New Foundation for Justice

Home as a Site of State‐Corporate Violence: Grenfell Tower, Aetiologies and Aftermaths

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