Andrew Hopkins

Was Three Mile Island a Normal Accident

Perrow’s normal accident theory suggests that some major accidents are inevitable for technological reasons. An alternative approach explains major accidents as resulting from management failures, particularly in relation to the communication of information. This latter theory has been shown to be applicable to a wide variety of disasters. By contrast, Perrow’s theory seems to be applicable to relatively few accidents, the exemplar case being the Three Mile Island nuclear power station accident in the U.S. in 1979. This article re-examines Three Mile Island. It shows that this was not a normal accident in Perrow’s sense and is readily explicable in terms of management failures. The article also notes that Perrow’s theory is motivated by a desire to shift blame away from front line operators and that the alternative approach does this equally well.

For whom does safety pay? The case of major accidents

Abstract Government agencies regularly use the argument that ‘safety pays’ as a way of motivating employers to attend to occupational health and safety. This paper looks at the effectiveness of this argument in the case of catastrophic hazards. It suggests that, while it may be true that safety pays in an abstract sense, this is irrelevant unless it can be shown that safety pays for relevant decision makers. All too often it does not. The article illustrates its claims by drawing on the literature on the Zeebrugge, Bhopal and Piper Alpha disasters, as well as on a study of a mine disaster in Australia.

Stress, the quality of work, and repetition strain injury in Australia

Abstract Widespread concern developed in the 1980s in Australia about repetition injuries among keyboard operators, particularly in the Australian Public Service. Government departments were found to vary in their injury rates and this research seeks to explain the variation. It is hypothesized that it is associated with differences in job stress or, more generally, the quality of work. A survey was carried out, using the Insel and Moo Work Environment Scale and certain other job stress variables and the hypothesis was confirmed. The paper draws conclusions about the need to redesign jobs in order to reduce the risk of repetition injuries.

ON THE SOCIOLOGY OF CRIMINAL LAW

This paper relates the revival of interest in the sociology of law, and in particular criminal law, to recent changes of perspective in the field of criminology. It considers the debate between conflict and consensus theorists over the nature of the criminal law and argues that efforts to settle the dispute in favor of one model or the other are somewhat misdirected. An attempt is made to reconcile the two viewpoints and to suggest how remaining points of disagreement can be used to stimulate more productive research.

Counteracting the Cultural Causes of Disaster

It is widely recognised that disasters are preceded by warning signs which are ignored or discounted because of cultural factors. There is now considerable discussion of the possibility of constructing safety cultures to counteract this effect. This paper contributes to this discussion by drawing on the case of a coal mine disaster in Australia. The paper shows that there were two sets of cultural factors at work preventing appropriate responses to warning signs. The first was a hierarchy of knowledge which placed greatest value on personal experience and systematically discounted the reports of others. The second was a culture of denial, an elaborate set of beliefs which held that ‘it couldn’t happen here’. The paper shows that the response of the authorities has been to mandate specific hazard management systems which force companies to attend to warnings. The paper concludes that only an understanding of safety culture which includes an organisational dimension provides an adequate way of conceptualising these developments.

Beyond Compliance Monitoring: New Strategies for Safety Regulators

Although the advent of general duty legislation makes the task of the regulator far less clear-cut, inspectorates are still involved in monitoring and to some extent enforcing compliance with rules of various sorts. Monitoring compliance in this way is crucially important, but this article seeks to identify strategies that go beyond compliance monitoring, by drawing on research on the causes of accidents and the nature of organizations. The strategies identified include: auditing the auditors; proactive investigation; supporting company safety staff; advising on organizational design; exposing performance; and promoting regulatory crisis. These are all ways in which regulators can encourage companies to improve their management of risk, ways that are not focused on identifying noncompliance with rules of any sort.

The Social Construction of Repetition Strain Injury

This paper examines the politics of the RSI debate, and more particularly, the ideologies which underpin both sides. It goes on to argue that the intervention into the debate of social scientists with a social construction perspective has political implications. While the social construction position, in prin ciple, is consistent with a view of RSI as injury, in practice it has been closely aligned with the view of RSI as neurosis and thus with the interests of insurers seeking to avoid liability for compensation.

Imprisonment and Recidivism: A Quasi-experimental Study

Current evidence suggests that imprisonment is, if anything, less effective than non-institutional treatment in the preven tion of recidivism. However, the research on which this con clusion is based contains serious methodological flaws. A quasi-experimental technique, not subject to these weak nesses, is developed here and applied to data on Connecticut offenders. Although subject to difficulties of their own, these data suggest that imprisonment is indeed less effective than its alternatives in preventing recidivism.

Review Article : Power, Elites and Ideology: A Commentary on 'Elites in Australia'

The reputational approach involves asking respondents whom they think are the power wielders in a community or in a particular situation. Here again, the obvious problem is that real power may be hidden from view. For these and other reasons, Higley et al. opt for the third strategy-the positional approach. This involves the study of top institutional position holders, on the assumption that they are the real wielders of power. The book thus focuses

The Uses of Law to Sociology

The relationship between law and sociology has long been of interest to lawyers and sociologists. Both groups have realised that sociological perspectives have much to contribute to our understanding of the sources and functioning of the law, and a thriving Sociology of Law has been the result. However, this traffic has been predominantly one way; sociology has been the resource discipline from which theories and techniques are taken and applied to law as the object of inquiry. Thus, within the sociological establishment, the Sociology of Law, like so many other ’sociologies of ...’, is treated as an area of specialisation, of interest in its own right but peripheral to core sociology. What is not sufficiently appreciated, I think, is that the study of law can be used to elucidate what