This free course, Questioning crime: social harms and global issues, introduces the concept of social harm as an alternative to the more familiar concept of 'crime' as a basis for studying aspects of the social world which are damaging or harmful. In doing so, it will encourage you to think critically about the strengths and limitations of criminology as a subject area.

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand the social harm perspective and its relationship to criminology
• critically examine the role of power, inequality and 'the global' in shaping crime and social harm
• apply learning of the social harm perspective to examples including 'natural disasters' such as Hurricane Katrina, as well as to imprisonment and the 'War on Terror'
• illustrate how instances of crime and uncriminalised harms are globally connected
• critically analyse power and inequality, including the roles of powerful actors such as states and multinational corporations, to examine debates about crime and harm.