The Politics and Practice of Occupational Health and Safety Law Enforcement

This book takes a critical approach to examining British and Italian occupational health and safety enforcement policies and questions the legal and political principles that underpin them. The book undertakes a comparative critical analysis of these two jurisdictions' health and safety regulatory enforcement practices by focusing on the causes and consequences of the under-criminalisation of these crimes. It explores the fundamentals of these two jurisdictions' criminal justice systems and political practices, policies and traditions and exposes how these translate into pragmatic social inequality and injustice for victims of occupational health and safety crimes and, more generally, citizens. Findings are drawn from qualitative interviews conducted with front line occupational health and safety enforcement officers. This book offers an account of the challenges encountered when attempting to scrutinise public institutions responsible for policing crimes of the powerful. The comparison of the political and criminal justice system practices, polices and traditions of the British and Italian legal systems offer a valuable critical contribution to the anglophone literature on the subject and, more generally, on regulatory enforcement policies and practices.

1. Introduction. - 2. Histories and traditions. - 3. Incidents and enforcement trends. - 4. Scrutinising public institutions. - 5. Enforcement resources. - 6. Discretionary and Legal Consistency and Proportionality. - 7. Discretion and Enforcement Activities. - 8. Conclusion.