State Harms

What is it about?

This is a contribution to what was at the time an innovative collection on social harm (or zemiology) - an alternative perspective to criminology which focusses on harmful behaviour irrespective of whether it is labelled criminal or deviant. Having written (with Penny Green) a book on State Harm (2004) which deliberately focussed on the deviant nature of (some) state violence and corruption, I argue here that studies of state crime and state harm both have their place. An important element of the study of state harm would be what practices get defined as harmful, and which harmful practices are seen as legitimate.

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Why is it important?

15 years on, I think this remains a useful explication of the concepts of state harm and state crime, and the relations between them.