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Beyond Criminology

Beyond Criminology

Paddy Hillyard | Christina Pantazis | Steve Tombs | Dave Gordon

(2004)

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Book Details

Abstract

Crime forms only a small and often insignificant amount of the harm experienced by people. While custom and tradition play an important role in the perpetuation of some types of harm, many forms of harm are rooted in the inequalities and social divisions systematically produced in - and by - contemporary states.

Exploring a range of topics including violence, indifference, corporate and state harms, murder, children, asylum and immigration policies, sexuality and poverty, the contributors raise a number of theoretical and methodological issues associated with a social harm approach. Only once we have identified the origins, scale and consequences of social harms, they argue, can we begin to formulate possible responses -- and these are more likely to be located in public and social policy than in the criminal justice system.

The book provides an original and challenging new perspective that goes beyond criminology - one which will be of interest to students, teachers and policy makers.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Contents iii
1 Introduction 1
2 Beyond criminology? 10
3 Towards a political economy of harm: states, corporations and the production of inequality 30
4 Violence in democratic societies: towards an analytic framework 55
5 A theory of moral indifference: understanding the production of harm by capitalist society 67
6 State harms 84
7 Re-orientating miscarriages of justice 101
8 The victimised state and the mystification of social harm 113
9 The war on migration 133
10 Workplace injury and death: social harm and the illusions of law 156
11 Prime suspect: murder in Britain 178
12 Gendering harm through a life course perspective 192
13 Heterosexuality as harm: fitting in 217
14 Children and the concept of harm 236
15 Poverty, death and disease 251
16 Conclusion 267
Notes 276
Bibliography 291
Notes on Contributors 321
Index 322