From Social Harm to Zemiology

A Critical Introduction

Victoria Canning, Steve Tombs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429773136
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Droit
• Subtopic: Droit pénal

This book outlines key developments in understanding social harm by setting out its historical foundations and the discussions which have proliferated since. It examines various attempts to conceptualise social harm and highlights key sites of contestation in its relationship to criminology to argue that these act as the basis for an activist zemiology, one directed towards social change for social justice. The past two decades have seen a proliferation of debate related to social harm in and around criminology. From climate catastrophe and a focus on environmental harms, unprecedented deaths generating focus on border harms and the coronavirus pandemic revealing the horror of mass and arguably avoidable deaths across the globe, critical studies in social harm appear ever more pressing.

Drawing on a range of international case studies of cultural, emotional, physical and economic harms, From Social Harm to Zemiology locates the study of social harm in an accessible fashion. In doing so it sets out how a zemiological lens can moves us beyond many of the problematic legacies of criminology. This book rejects criminologies which have disproportionately served to regulate intersectional groups, and which have arguably inflicted as much or more harm by bolstering the very ideologies of control in offering minor reforms that inadvertently expand and strengthen states and corporations. It does this by sketching out the contours, objects, methods and ontologies of a disciplinary framework which rejects commonplace assumptions of 'value freedom'. From Social Harm to Zemiology advocates social change in accordance with groups who are most disenfranchised, and thus often most socially harmed.

An accessible and compelling read, this book is essential reading for all zemiologists, critical criminologists, and those engaged with criminological and social theory.

1

Understanding social harm

Introduction

As we have highlighted, the key objective of this book is to create a platform for advancing the theoretical and empirical development of zemiology in ways which distinguish it clearly from criminology. Given this objective, it may seem rather contradictory to begin this story within the umbrella of criminology but, since the origins of zemiology itself were developed as a counteraction to what some considered to be the harms of mainstream criminology, then that is exactly where this chapter must begin. In a way, the story of zemiology might in fact go back one step further than the title of this book to look more like From Criminology to Critical Criminology to Social Harm to Zemiology – although we hope you will agree we opted for something slightly snappier!

This chapter therefore outlines the ways in which the study of social harm came to be developed in critical criminology, and how the two approaches might diverge. We will reflect on the key correlations and contentions within the approaches, and map the history of these as they developed, particularly through the 1990s and beyond. From this, we hope to situate a springboard from which the remainder of the book will move towards zemiology as a discipline in its own right: forged by the contentions it has met within and across criminology, but striving to create an alternative approach to seeing, evidencing, understanding and thus mitigating systemic social harms.

Haunted by ‘the criminal man’?

Contemporary societies are awash with images, representations, discourses and claims around ‘crime’ and ‘criminals’ – each of which is, either explicitly or implicitly, a contribution to understandings of what crime is and who the criminals are. This, at the same time, constructs, challenges and reproduces understandings of what is not crime and who is not the criminal.

Within the story of crime with which you will be most familiar, the criminal will likely be a young male, possibly from a Black, Asian or Refugee background. Such a stereotype is, of course, easily contradicted – but as is often the case with stereotypes, it has some relationship to reality. This reality relates strongly to two points: first, mechanisms of social control through processes of criminalisation disproportionately focus on poorer, Black and structurally disenfranchised groups. Second, there remains a lack of focus on harms or criminalised activities which are perpetrated by states, corporations or political elites. In short, with few exceptions, the gaze of law and law enforcement (and, in particular, policing) is seldom trained on the actions of those who are most powerful in society, but strongly concentrated upon regulating and criminalising those who are more marginalised.

Often the study of criminological theory begins with one of the founders of the discipline, Cesare Lombroso, an Italian, who published what is widely regarded as the first ever book in criminology – L’Uomo Delinquente (The Criminal Man) – in 1876. One of the most well-known aspects of his work claimed to identify the criminal type, not least through physical features – whether these be eyes that were set close together, oddly shaped foreheads or jaws, noses that were flattened or twisted, and so on. For Lombroso, these features reveal something about individuals – that they possess abnormal or pathological genes, which in turn predispose those individuals towards criminality. In Lombroso’s own terms, certain physical characteristics are the physical manifestations of ‘atavism’, marking throwbacks to a more primitive stage of human development, inferior physically and also psychologically to ‘normal’ citizens – citizens not infected with the pathological genes.

All of this might sound a bit far-fetched to contemporary criminology. Is it really feasible to identify an internal abnormality or pathology just by someone’s physical features? Is there really a condition called atavism that means that some people are less developed than others? Perhaps unsurprisingly, in general, budding criminologists quickly learn the criticisms of these claims and move on from them as if they are so outlandish that they have no resonance within our understandings of crime, criminality and the criminal. Crime is not the product of a genetic condition, an abnormality, an illness – surely things are much more complex than that?

Lombroso’s theory, as with much criminological theory, was a product of a specific historical, political and social context: Italy’s unification into a nation state. His ideas mirrored a broader discourse to explain the different economic trajectories of the north and south of Italy with northerners seen as entrepreneurs and southerners as lazy, a discourse which provided an official justification for the expropriation of southern wealth and the violence meted out to those who resisted unification. However, it may not be wise to be so immediately dismissive of Lombroso in one respect: his claims that criminals look different are, if not accepted in detail, certainly coherent with popular representations of ‘the criminal’, and indeed match up to some vague idea or image that people somehow both recognise and act upon in their daily lives. Perhaps something like the image you hold in your mind’s eye if asked to picture a ‘criminal’?

Have you ever heard, said or thought the phrase, ‘he doesn’t look the type’? Who has not made assumptions about a group of young people based upon their being gathered in a public place, dressed in a certain manner? Perhaps you have crossed the street or decided not to sit in a certain spot on public transport because of the way someone looked – the type they seemed to be? None of this necessarily implies being discriminatory, but it does mean that all of us ‘grow up’ with stories of what crime and who the criminal is which are very powerful indeed. Moreover, some of the same ideologies used by Lombroso are still employed in criminal justice approaches. The most obvious example of this is the worrying re-emergence of ‘neuroscientific’ investigations of brain scanning of ‘potential terrorists’ – based on approaching Muslim men for such an activity, thus relying on a social construct of potential deviance (hence our comparison to Lombroso – for more information see Hamid and Pretus, 2019).

However, to think a little more outside the human box, let us walk through the application of such physical attributes towards behaviour as per undertaken in the policing of so-called ‘dangerous dogs’.

Case study example: policing dangerous dogs, Lombroso style

Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) is a form of legislation aimed at controlling the ownership and reproduction of certain breeds of dog. At the time of writing, there are 52 countries which exercise some form of BSL. BSL was originally developed in the early 1990s in response to various high-profile cases of dog-related deaths of children. The most common breed regulated was initially the American Pitbull Terrier, expanding to encompass in some countries ‘pitbull-type breeds’. In the UK, for example, this extends to include also the Japanese Tosa, Fila Braziliero and Dogo Argentina. In Denmark, this banned list extends to 25 breeds, as well as crossbreeds thereof. As the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals notes,

The term pit bull is an elastic, imprecise and subjective phrase ranging from the American pit bull terrier breed at its narrowest end through to a term which includes a number of bull breeds. It is also used to describe dogs similar in appearance e.g. block heads, white chest markings or brindle coats.

(RSPCA, 2016: 8)

Ironically then, the most common dog breed regulated by BSL is not a breed per se, but a culmination of breeds and cross breeds!

This leads us to think about ways in which biological essentialism – which considers deviant or criminal (and other) behaviours to be the product of physical characteristics – plays out in the regulation of BSL. Take a look at the below list of criteria (Box 1.1) used by police in the UK – devised originally by the American Dog Breeders Association to determine the physical attributes of the Pitbull.

Box 1.1Outline of characteristics expected of ‘pitbull type dogs’

•When first viewing the dog it should appear square from the side,and its height to the top of its shoulders should be the same distance as from the front of its shoulder to the real point of its hip.

•Its height to weight ratio should be in proportion.

•Its coat should be short and bristled,(Single Coated).

•Its head should appear to be wedge shaped when viewed from the side and top but rounded when viewed from the front. The head should be around 2/3 Width of shoulders and 25 percent Wider at cheeks than at the base of the skull (this is due to the cheek muscles)

•The distance from the back of the head to between the eyes should be equal to the distance from between the eyes to the tip of its nose.

•The dog should have a good depth from the top of head to bottom of jaw and a straight box-like muzzle.

•Its eyes should be small and deep-set. triangular Whan viewed from the side and elliptical from front.

•Its shoulders should be wider than the rib cage at the eighth rib.

•Its elbows should be flat with its front legs running parallel to the spine.

•Its forelegs should be heavy and solid and nearly twice the thickness of the hind legs just below the hock.

•The rib cage should be deep and spring straight out from the spine, it should be elliptical in cross section tapering tapering at the bottom and not ‘barrel’ chested.

•It should have a tail that hangs down like an old fashioned ‘pump handle’ to around the hock_it should have a broad hip that allows good attachment of muscles in the hindquarters and hind legs.

•Its knee joint should be in the upper third of the dog’s rear leg, and the bones below that should appear light, fine and springy.

•Overall the dog should have an athletic appearance, the standard makes no mention of ears, colour, height, or weight.

(DEFRA, 2009: 20)

What becomes obvious here is that determining most of these attributes is an exercise in subjectivity. Can you define a small and deep-set eye? What is a ‘good depth’ from the top of a head to the bottom of a jaw? What is an ‘athletic appearance’? When we see this in these terms, the parallels with Lombroso’s atavistic man – determined by cranial shape and lesions, forearms and so on – it becomes clear that depending on body shape and size is perhaps not the most effective way of linking physical attributes to behaviour, either in humans or animals.

At this point you might wonder what on earth dog behaviour has to do with a move towards researching from a zemiological perspective. However, it is here that the nuance of zemiology can be applied in the context of both investigating and thus addressing, harm.

First, BSL is based on the assumption that a problem in society, in this case injuries caused by dogs, can be regulated by illegalising specific breeds based on physical characteristics. A zemiologist would reject such essentialism and consider instead what harms are inflicted by such interventions, and indeed if such approaches actually mitigate the serious harm in question. To the former, all evidence suggests that no, we cannot determine behaviour based on physical attributes. Although we can predict the potential impact of a bite in terms of ratio to the dog and jaw, whether or not a dog bites is not connected to its ability to do so (which dogs do not know) but to the way in which is it socialised and treated. Indeed, in a survey of 215 leading behaviourists undertaken by Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in the UK, 74 per cent said that breed was either not at all or only slightly important as a reason for why dogs attack people, while 86 per cent said that how the dog was brought up by the keeper was very important (Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, 2016). To the latter point, BSL is ineffective at addressing the harm caused by dog-related injuries. It has not reduced dog bites, which are on the contrary increasing even after almost 30 years of BSL in the UK (RSPCA, 2016: 14). Despite this, state institutions continue to implement the same approach and in doing so expand the role of the process of policing and punishment.

Focusing again on deaths, as the RSPCA highlights, in the UK 30 people died in dog-related incidents between 1991 and 2016, a minority (9) of which involved dogs registered as one of the four dangerous ‘breeds’ (RSPCA, 2016: 3). As such, the characteristics determined in the above list become increasingly irrelevant. From a zemiological perspective, these 30 deaths are not insignificant: death causes harm to and beyond the individual, and preventable deaths (as most dog-related deaths are, through training and behavioural intervention) are cause for serious concern. However, when we compare this number of people to those who have died in the UK due to excess winter deaths discussed in Chapter 2 as an example, we can see that responses much more proactive regarding regulation and policing of breeds despite the much higher number of people dying from cold. Moreover, research by the organisation Born Innocent found that the majority of dogs destroyed in the UK after being seized under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 had not exhibited any dangerous behaviour or been involved in any incident with the public. The latest available figures show that in 2015/2016 a total of 307 dogs were destroyed in just one year after being seized, but that 175 of these (57...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of boxes
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Social harm matters
• 1 Understanding social harm
• 2 Towards social harm and zemiology
• 3 A provisional typology of harm
• 4 The relations and ontologies of harm
• 5 Doing zemiology
• Conclusion: Activist zemiology for social justice
• Index