This is a book about the life of the legal system. Its object is to illustrate a way of thinking about decision-making using the example of prosecution cases in a regulatory agency. The study focuses on the processes of the law, rather than occupational health and safety regulation per se, for the way in which prosecution is used in the enforcement of regulation reflects processes generally observable in the legal system. The book addresses the creation and shaping of legal cases and their attrition, and the processes involved in prosecuting. It develops and applies a theory of decision-making ... More

This is a book about the life of the legal system. Its object is to illustrate a way of thinking about decision-making using the example of prosecution cases in a regulatory agency. The study focuses on the processes of the law, rather than occupational health and safety regulation per se, for the way in which prosecution is used in the enforcement of regulation reflects processes generally observable in the legal system. The book addresses the creation and shaping of legal cases and their attrition, and the processes involved in prosecuting. It develops and applies a theory of decision-making, connecting broad features in the environment of a legal bureaucracy with the details of decisions made in individual cases. What are the conditions under which legal officials elect the public and consequential course of prosecution? Using a naturalistic approach, a detailed, multilevel analysis is made of the ways in which regulatory officials respond to a range of events arising from activities in the workplace that have resulted in death or injury, and the ways in which these officials handle occupational risks. Such matters are not often the stuff of criminal trial. The book shows that the moral status of violations is central to the decision to prosecute, set in the context of the moral and political ambivalence within which regulatory agencies work. It argues that this ambivalence leads to a particular level of prosecution and determines the kinds of case that are selected for prosecution. The book is therefore a study in the use of discretion by legal actors.