Why Social Harm Matters: Five Reasons from a Feminist Influenced Victim Perspective

Abstract

This chapter rehearses the arguments as to why social harm matters from a victim perspective. These arguments have previously lain dormant though they are heavily implied and are implicit in the work of other scholars. The chapter explains what a victim perspective is and how harm and victimisation are compatible concepts. It exemplifies and illustrates why social harm matters via a focus on gendered violence and abuse. In foregrounding five reasons why harm matters from a victim perspective, the chapter problematises the dominant criminological discourse on human violence at the same time as it facilitates an alternative conceptualisation of violence and abuse that is inclusive of environmental harm and non-human animals suffering. The chapter concludes that social harm matters from a victimological perspective now and should continue to do so in the wider—and reformed—criminological project.