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Promoting
worker and public safety through law enforcement and
corporate criminal accountability
In the last ten years, over 3000 people have been killed,
and more than 200,000 have suffered serious injuries,
as a result of work-related activities.
Thousands more people have suffered crippling environmental
and occupational diseases, and hundreds have been killed
or injured in transport and other disasters.
Defective consumer products and dangerous drugs have
also caused widespread harm.
Many of these deaths and injuries are the result of
negligent or reckless conduct on the part of companies
and those who control them. They would not have taken
place had companies complied with the law.
It is the job of regulatory bodies (like the Health
and Safety Executive and Local Authorities) to enforce
the law - to ensure that companies comply with legal
safety standards.
It is because regulatory agencies often fail to do so
that some deaths and injuries take place.
It is the experience of the CCA that many companies
will only operate safety and ensure that deaths and
injuries are prevented if these agencies ensure compliance
with the law
And because, when these deaths and injuries do take
place, they can be the result of criminal conduct on
the part of companies, it is necessary that they are
subject to appropriate levels of investigation and where
evidence requires, prosecution.
However most of these deaths and injuries are not investigated
and even when investigations do take place, prosecutions
are all too infrequent. As a result companies and their
senior officers escape criminal accountability for health
and safety offences and in some cases manslaughter.
The CCA believes that an effective investigation and
prosecution policy will not only ensure deterrence in
the future, but secure moral justice and accountability
for the bereaved and injured.
The CCA has been set up to confront both the failure
of regulatory agencies to enforce safety law, so deaths
and injuries can be prevented and, when law enforcement
has failed and death, injury or disease has resulted,
the failure of the criminal justice system to ensure
accountability and deterrence.
Though the Centre is primarily concerned with enforcement
and accountability in relation to companies established
for profit, our remit covers other organisations, such
as local authorities and hospitals, which are either
not corporations or have not been established for profit.
The
Centre's Activities
The Centre's Board of Directors
The Centre's Advisory Council |
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