HARM, Sibin Karuthy

The harm principle holds that the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals. John Stuart Mill first articulated this principle in On Liberty, where he argued that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others". The belief "that no one should be forcibly prevented from acting in any way he chooses provided his acts are not invasive of the free acts of others" has become one of the basic principle of libertarian politics. The harm principle was first fully articulated by the English thinker John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) in the first chapter of On Liberty .Zemiology is the study of social harms. Zemiology gets its name from the Greek word zemia, meaning harm. It originated as a critique of criminology and the notion of crime. In contrast with 'individual based harms' such as theft, the notion of social harm or social injury incorporates harms caused by nation states and corporations. These ideas have received increased attention from critical academics such as neo-Marxists and feminists who have sought to create an independent field of study, separate from criminology, that studies the harms that affect individuals' lives that are not considered to be criminal or are rarely criminalised such as mortgage misspelling, poverty and unemployment. The zemiological, or social harm approach attempts to broaden public and sociological focus to vicissitudes of daily life in capitalist society, some of these harms, they argue are more harmful than those caused by crime. Approximately 1,000 people a year are murdered in England and Wales. However, there are a number of events that cause large amounts of physical harm and even death, which are rarely considered crime or criminalised. In the UK there are around 40,000 serious road accidents in the UK every year. This is equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every month. In 2002 3,431 people were killed on Britain's roads and 35,976 seriously injured. In 2002, 81,562 cases of food poisoning were reported and the majority of these cases are believed to have been contracted in food prepared outside the home. In the UK, The Labour Force Survey found that 228 people were killed while working due to a work-related incident and 2.2 million people with illnesses in the UK believed their condition was made worse by their past or current job. A growing phenomena impacting on worker's health is stress. A recent report issued by the British Health and Safety Executive found that 16% of workers were working over 60 hours a week. Similarly, the Department of Trade and Industry found that 19% of men visited doctors for stress related problems, with that figure rising to 23% in men over 40. Also, the Trade Union Congress found 10% of work-based personal injury cases were stress-related. According to the Department of Health there were 3500 deaths occurring from the effects of sulphur dioxide and 8100 deaths were caused due to particulate matter in the air in July 2002.