Policing for Whom?

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of recent evidence emerging from the building industry about British state tolerance, and encouragement, of an illegal ‘blacklist’ of workers in the industry. As part of this process, the article argues that the form of policing/regulation that is observable in the case of the blacklisted workers is one that ultimately seeks to guarantee as its primary concern, not the rule of law, but the orderly reproduction of surplus value in the building industry. The article does not suggest that the latter purpose is all that concerns policing/regulation, but it does suggest that it is the principal effect of a combination of various policing and regulatory techniques. In order to achieve orderly reproduction of surplus value, it is argued that building workers are confronted by a form of economic force which is given shape by, and ultimately underpinned by, the system of policing/regulation that at the same time, claims to protect them.

Confronting the “fraud bottleneck”: private sanctions for fraud and their implications for justice

“…They are often marketed as "preventative tools" rather than punishment, but they do have implications for individuals listed on the register, as has been noted in research on more illicit blacklists (Whyte, 2015). The consequences of being placed on these fraudster lists include greater difficulties in securing employment and/or costs in gaining financial products, and therefore must be seen as a VOL.…”

“…There are a variety of fraudster databases that could be compared to the UK's state run Violent and Sex Offender Register, but which are managed by private sector consortiums. They are often marketed as "preventative tools" rather than punishment, but they do have implications for individuals listed on the register, as has been noted in research on more illicit blacklists (Whyte, 2015). The consequences of being placed on these fraudster lists include greater difficulties in securing employment and/or costs in gaining financial products, and therefore must be seen as a form of punishment.…”

Right-Wing Pressure Groups and the Anti-Union ‘Movement’ in Britain: Aims of Industry, Neoliberalism, and Industrial Relations Reform, 1942–1997

“…Such strategies sought to maintain managerial control over workplace regulation to the benefit of employers. 198 Anti-communist Cold War ideology provided the 'intellectual' justification for such activity, but this endured long after international tensions had formally ended. 199 Power can be observed in cases where an actor persuades another actor to act in a way it otherwise would not have, and necessitates some acknowledgement of what might have happened without such an intervention.…”

Regulating exposure: routine deaths, work and the Covid crisis

“…This creation of a distinct category of regulatory law in 19 th century Britain set an enduring pattern which was subsequently to be reproduced in numerous jurisdictions, and which underpins the contemporary normalisation of work-related deaths (Storey, 2021) -certain deaths become routinised through regulation in order to allow business to proceed in as normal a fashion as possible. (Whyte, 2004(Whyte, , 2015 To be clear, this is not to claim that the level and effects of workplace regulation (and indeed deregulation) are to be understood through this original (if enduring) settlement around decriminalisation and normalisation. But a focus on this process does underscore that regulation of business, not least in health and safety which can affect the minutiae of production (Szasz, 1984), is always a compromise, an outcome of inter-(and intra-) class struggle -albeit this compromise under capitalism must be resolved for capitalism, so that the state guarantees and maintains maximum levels of accumulation and profitability within an historically specific balance of class forces which comprise social relations and make social order possible.…”