Toward a Human Rights Criminology of Public Health

This chapter explores the linkage between the disciplines of criminology and public health, and argues there is a need for critical criminologists to develop an upstream criminology of public health. The U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, subsequent U.N. Conventions, and nation-based rights documents like the European Social Charter recognize a fundamental right to positive social determinants of health. These include healthy food, air, water, safe housing, education, health care, and social engagement, and we would now add a liveable natural environment free from the ravages of climate change. The failure of states to promote and protect these rights, and the active role of corporations in transgressing these rights result in wrongdoings that range from from ‘blameworthy social harms’ to objectively criminal acts. All of these, we argue, are approriate topics of criminological inquiry. To develop this argument, we apply the public health ‘parable of the stream,’ using it to examine upstream (societal), midstream (organizational), and downstream (individual) actions implicated in the violation of human rights to health. We further argue that public health criminology  should be more than an academic exercise. It should be an opportunity for criminologists to work  with public health advocates who are already engaged in the struggle to right these wrongs.