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For many children and young people, Britain is a harmful society in which to grow up. This book contextualises the violence that occurs between a small number of young people within a wider perspective on social harm.
Aimed at academics, youth workers and policymakers, the book presents a new way to make sense of this pressing social problem. The authors also propose measures to substantially improve the lives of Britain’s young people – in areas ranging from the early years, to youth services and the criminal justice system.
This unique study of social harm offers a systematic and critical discussion of the nature of environmental harm from an eco-justice perspective, challenging conventional criminological definitions of environmental harm.
The book evaluates three interconnected justice-related approaches to environmental harm: environmental justice (humans), ecological justice (the environment) and species justice (non-human animals). It provides a critical assessment of environmental harm by interrogating key concepts and exploring how activists and social movements engage in the pursuit of justice. It concludes by describing the tensions between the different approaches and the importance of developing an eco-justice framework that to some extent can reconcile these differences.
Using empirical evidence built on theoretical foundations with examples and illustrations from many national contexts, ‘Environmental harm’ will be of interest to students and academics in criminology, sociology, law, geography, environmental studies, philosophy and social policy all over the world.
Labour exploitation is a highly topical though complex issue that has international resonance for those concerned with social justice and social welfare, but there is a lack of research available about it. This book, part of the Studies in Social Harm series, is the first to look at labour exploitation from a social harm perspective, arguing that, as a global social problem, it should be located within the broader study of work-based harm.
Written by an expert in policy orientated research, he critiques existing approaches to the study of workplace exploitation, abuse and forced labour. Mapping out a new sub-discipline, this innovative book aims to shift power from employers to workers to reduce levels of labour exploitation and work-based harm. It is relevant to academics from many fields as well as legislators, policy makers, politicians, employers, union officials, activists and consumers.
While the notion of social harm has long interested critical criminologists it is now being explored as an alternative field of study, which provides more accurate analyses of the vicissitudes of life.
However, important aspects of this notion remain undeveloped, in particular the definition of social harm, the question of responsibility and the methodologies for studying harm. This book, the first to theorise and define the social harm concept beyond criminology, seeks to address these omissions and questions why some capitalist societies appear to be more harmful than others. In doing so it provides a platform for future debates, in this series and beyond.
It will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers across criminology, sociology, social policy, socio-legal studies and geography.
As the percentage of people working in the service economy continues to rise, there is a need to examine workplace harm within low-paid, insecure, flexible and short-term forms of ‘affective labour’. This is the first book to discuss harm through an ultra-realist lens and examines the connection between individuals, their working conditions and management culture.
Using data from a long-term ethnographic study of the service economy, it investigates the reorganisation of labour markets and the shift from security to flexibility, a central function of consumer capitalism. It highlights working conditions and organisational practices which employees experience as normal and routine but within which multiple harms occur.
Challenging current thinking within sociology and policy analysis, it reconnects ideology and political economy with workplace studies and uses examples of legal and illegal activity to demonstrate the multiple harms within the service economy.
with discrimination and efforts to ensure that no particular community (especially those featuring people of colour and from low incomes) is subject to disproportionate environmental disadvantage. Research in this area has demonstrated not only inequalities related to race and class, but also factors such as gender, disability and immigration status (Agyeman and Carmin, 2011). There are many different categories of vulnerable groups throughout the world, and notably indigenous peoples and traditional cultures have been especially prone to bearing the brunt of
%, and postmenopausal breast cancer by 12%’ (2011, p 815). In terms of life expectancy, it is estimated that an obese person’s life span is 2-4 years shorter than someone with a weight within the normal range, whereas someone who is severely obese is likely to lose 8-10 years. Perhaps as significant is the impact of obesity on life-limiting illnesses – in a study of 10 European countries, the chance of disability for those who are obese was estimated to be nearly twice that of those with normal weight. Wang et al’s analyses (2011) suggest that a hypothetical 1
outcomes, including low levels of self-rated physical health, increased susceptibility to dementia and the onset of disability for older men. House et al note the irony, as epidemiological research has come to fully understand ‘the importance of social relationships for health ... as their prevalence and availability may be declining...’ (1988, p 544); they continue to suggest that as ‘changes in other risk factors (for example, the decline of smoking) and improvements in medical technology are still producing overall improvements on health and longevity, but the
be linked to a rise in mental ill health. According to NHS Digital (2017), approximately 2.6 million people in the UK were in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services across 2016-17. This represents almost 5% of the total population. By the end of 2015, just over 1 million people were referred to IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) services for help with anxiety and depression, 60% of whom were women and 46% were under 35 years of age (NHS Digital, 2015). Figures for 2014-15 show an almost 10
. As already touched upon, social harms are not evenly spread across the country. Certain communities experience a substantial concentration of these harms, and some young people’s lives are shaped significantly by their cumulative impact. All of the social harms we discuss in this chapter are in some way created, catalysed or exacerbated by the maldistribution of recognition, resources and risk in our society. This maldistribution is social as well as geographical: class, sex, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, ethnic heritage and ‘race’ are all vectors of substantial
