Critical Perspectives on Crime and Social Harm: Toward a Criminology of Human Rights

Abstract Using Sutherland’s conceptualization of white‐collar crime as a significant point of departure, this article explores recent attempts to theorize crime and social harm from a critical criminological perspective. Arguing that the development of this approach is inextricably linked to theoretical and methodological concerns that strike at the very foundation of criminology as a discipline of study, I show how advances in state and corporate crime literature have advanced the field of criminology. Ultimately I argue that contemporary mainstream criminology, which tends to focus solely on the analysis of traditional ‘street’ crime, has failed to bring within its criminological purview those actions which have the greatest potential for causing significant human suffering.