Social Harm Can Help Us to Explore the Complexities of
Critically consider the way in which a focus on social harm can help us to explore the complexities of ‘crime’.
Introduction:
The concept of crime differs widely between nations and within different social groups, locally and globally. The influence of governments, corporations and individuals who are able to wield power enables differing concepts of crime to flourish, and the interpretation of crime to vary according to laws implemented by those in power. Criminal justice also varies within different nation states. In exploring the complexities of crime it is important to emphasise that power can offer protection and immunisation for those who have caused harm to members of society. Making people accountable for their actions takes on a different meaning when those in power seek to exploit those who have no say in the decision making process. This essay explores the complex way in which notions of crime appear to provide a “smoke-screen” for everyday dangers that people face, including injuries in the work place, inner city strategies that benefit the powerful rather than the poorer citizens and cybercrime that causes harm by exploiting vulnerable people and offering anonymity to offenders.
As global issues of crime and violence dominate the daily news, people are constantly faced with scenes of conflict. The changing face of the Middle East has highlighted how those in power can be toppled when citizens rise up to overcome repression. The chance to rise up and over-throw despots in the “The Arab Spring” (phrase coined by the media) has highlighted the fact that citizens in different nations are able to instigate change, when they act as one. The uprising started in Tunisia on Dec. 17, 2010 after Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian man, set himself on fire in front of a local municipal office. According to a reporter in Tunisia the incident occurred because earlier that day, Tunisian police had confiscated Bouazizi’s cart and beaten him
Introduction:
The concept of crime differs widely between nations and within different social groups, locally and globally. The influence of governments, corporations and individuals who are able to wield power enables differing concepts of crime to flourish, and the interpretation of crime to vary according to laws implemented by those in power. Criminal justice also varies within different nation states. In exploring the complexities of crime it is important to emphasise that power can offer protection and immunisation for those who have caused harm to members of society. Making people accountable for their actions takes on a different meaning when those in power seek to exploit those who have no say in the decision making process. This essay explores the complex way in which notions of crime appear to provide a “smoke-screen” for everyday dangers that people face, including injuries in the work place, inner city strategies that benefit the powerful rather than the poorer citizens and cybercrime that causes harm by exploiting vulnerable people and offering anonymity to offenders.
As global issues of crime and violence dominate the daily news, people are constantly faced with scenes of conflict. The changing face of the Middle East has highlighted how those in power can be toppled when citizens rise up to overcome repression. The chance to rise up and over-throw despots in the “The Arab Spring” (phrase coined by the media) has highlighted the fact that citizens in different nations are able to instigate change, when they act as one. The uprising started in Tunisia on Dec. 17, 2010 after Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old Tunisian man, set himself on fire in front of a local municipal office. According to a reporter in Tunisia the incident occurred because earlier that day, Tunisian police had confiscated Bouazizi’s cart and beaten him