Defining social harm

Working for free illegal employment practices, ‘off the books’ work and the continuum of legality within the service economy

“…Using Harvey's (2010) concept of 'accumulation by dispossession', the illegal employment practices exhibited within the formal economy represent the normal functioning of a capitalist system. From a social harm perspective (Hillyard and Tombs 2004;Pemberton 2016;Lloyd 2018), the continuum of legal and illegal practice evident across both the formal and informal labour markets reflect the imperatives of capitalism in its current neoliberal phase; to squeeze labour costs and extract profit wherever and however possible (Scott 2017). At one extreme, this facilitates the use of modern slavery by unscrupulous groups and individuals while further along the continuum formal employers may deny contractually agreed entitlements in order to extract free labour from employees.…”

“…Illegal migrants are overworked, underpaid and doubly precarious (Ahmad 2008a); formal service sector employees are also precarious, overworked, underpaid and beset by an absence of protection against unscrupulous employers (Lloyd 2018). A growing body of literature has begun to highlight the systemic harm perpetrated by capitalism and, in particular, neoliberal political economy (Hillyard and Tombs 2004;Pemberton 2016;Scott 2017). Pemberton (2016) notes that each variation on capitalist political economy has harmful consequences but states unequivocally that neoliberalism is harmful in the extreme.…”

“…A growing body of literature has begun to highlight the systemic harm perpetrated by capitalism and, in particular, neoliberal political economy (Hillyard and Tombs 2004;Pemberton 2016;Scott 2017). Pemberton (2016) notes that each variation on capitalist political economy has harmful consequences but states unequivocally that neoliberalism is harmful in the extreme. The systematic erosion of employment rights and protections in the name of efficiency, productivity, competition and profit (Scott 2017), the removal of social safety nets (Hillyard and Tombs 2017), and the demand to realise profit through increasingly problematic markets and avenues (Harvey 2010) leads to the exploitation of all workers, not only illegal migrants or those employed in the informal economy.…”

L’émergence et l’avenir de la criminologie environnementale1

“…Le point de vue analytique porté sur les dommages sociaux a géné-ralement mis en lumière trois problèmes importants (Pantazis et Pemberton, 2009 ;Pemberton, 2015). D'abord, les dommages sociaux sont omniprésents, précisément parce qu'ils proviennent et font partie intégrante de la structure des sociétés contemporaines.…”

Deviant Leisure: A Critical Criminological Perspective for the Twenty-First Century

“…In the coming pages, we will show how the deviant leisure perspective draws upon three of the most important developments within late 20 th and early 21 st century criminology. First, the growing 'zemiological turn' within criminology argues persuasively that the discipline needs to move beyond socially constructed categories of crime and deviance to focus upon the more ontologically rigorous (although no less elusive) concept of social harm (Boukli and Kotzé, 2018;Lasslett, 2010;Pemberton, 2015;Raymen, forthcoming;Yar, 2012). Second, the associated development of a 'green criminology' has shifted criminologists' attention to the increasingly destructive events and problems generated by liberal capitalism, and their impacts upon the environment, human and non-human populations South, 2015, 2017;South, 1998;White, 2013;see also Davies et al, this issue).…”