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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published online on October 13, 2009
British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azp063
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The British Journal of Criminology 0:azp063 (2009)
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Deadly Consensus1

Worker Safety and Regulatory Degradation under New Labour

Steve Tombs* and David Whyte

* Professor of Sociology, School of Social Science, John Moores University, 68 Hope Street, Liverpool, L1 9HW, UK; s.p.tombs{at}ljmu.ac.uk


  Abstract

This paper documents the vulnerability of the UK workplace safety regime to ‘regulatory degradation’. Following a brief overview of this regime, the paper examines the dominant arguments within academic literature on appropriate and feasible regulatory enforcement, arguing that the approaches to regulation thereby advocated have been easily degraded as a result of their compatibility with neo-liberal economic strategy. A subsequent analysis of empirical trends within safety enforcement reveals a virtual collapse of formal enforcement, as political and resource pressures have taken their toll on the regulatory authority. Finally, the paper indicates that the increasing impunity with which employers can kill and injure is particularly problematic as we enter sustained economic recession, and underlines the urgent need for regulatory alternatives.

Key Words: safety crimes • regulation • deregulation • enforcement • health and safety • neo-liberalism • risk


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