Social Harm Essay

Zemiology, the study of social harm, is a term coined by Paddy Hillyard and emerged from a long series of debates within critical criminology. In these debates it was argued if Zemiology should be a study that is separate from criminology, or if social harm should simply just be a subtype of criminology; this is still an ongoing debate. In this essay, it will be discussed how the concept of social harm came about and why the concept of social harm has developed in criminology. I will also discuss some of the challenges that exist in defining this concept.
The concept of social harm and a brief critique of criminology
The concept of social harm developed in criminology through Hillyard and Tombs (2004) in the book Beyond Criminology where they

Before moving into this concept, however, we must briefly touch on the critiques of critical criminology and why people are advocating using social harm to transcend criminology (Hillyard & Tombs, 2007, pp. 9). In 1999, Van Swaaningen called for an assessment of the aspects of critical criminology as he argued that criminology has moved on from its methods and beliefs into the older notion of an applied science that is politically and financially motivated (Hillyard & Tombs, 2007, pp. 10). In Beyond Criminology, Hillyard & Tombs have a total of 9 different critiques of criminology. These are: crime has no ontological reality; criminology perpetuates the myth of ‘crime’; crime consists of many petty events; crime excludes many serious harms; constructing ‘crimes’; criminalisation and punishment inflict pain; crime control is ineffective; crime gives legitimacy to the expansion of crime control; crime serves to maintain power relations (Hillyard & Tombs, 2007). To summarize these critiques, criminology is outdated and at times can create more harm than good. While critical criminology has produced a framework for understanding crime, we need to dive deeper into understanding how we can effectively tackle the social harm that

Harm is something that is often hidden in plain sight, something that is swept under the rug and can be defined as something good or encouraged. To explain this further, if our attention is focused on what we have traditionally defined as a crime, harm from people of higher power for example isn’t talked about and ignored when this is the crime that is creating the most harm. Because of their power and outdated laws, we tend to at times neglect the bigger picture of where social harm is coming from. Essentially, the idea of this is to expand the notion of harm and look outside of what we know as crime and into the harms that the national states have