From the Master and Servant legislation to the Factories Acts of the 19th century, the criminal law has always had a vital yet normatively complex role in the regulation of work relations. Even in its earliest forms, it operated both as a tool to repress collective organizations and enforce labour discipline, while policing the worst excesses of industrial capitalism. Recently, governments have begun to rediscover criminal law as a regulatory tool in a diverse set of areas related to labour law: 'modern slavery', penalizing irregular migrants, licensing regimes for labour market intermediaries, wage theft, supporting the enforcement of general labour standards, new forms of hybrid preventive orders, harassment at work, and industrial protest.
This volume explores the political and regulatory dimensions of the new 'criminality at work' from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, including labour law, immigration law, and health and safety regulations. The volume provides an overview of the regulatory terrain of 'criminality at work', exploring whether these different regulatory interventions represent politically legitimate uses of the criminal law. The book also examines whether these recent interventions constitute a new pattern of criminalization that operates in preventive mode and is based upon character and risk-based forms of culpability. The volume concludes by reflecting upon the general themes of 'criminality at work' comparatively, from Australian, Canadian, and US perspectives.
Criminality at Work is a timely, rich and ambitious piece of scholarship that examines the many intersections between criminal law and work relations from a historical and contemporary vantage-point.
Professor Alan Bogg's academic career started at the University of Birmingham, where he was a lecturer between 2000 and 2003. He was then elected as a Law Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford, lecturing at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. He was a Professor of Labour Law at the University of Oxford until July 2017, and Senior Tutor at Hertford College. He is currently an Emeritus Fellow at Hertford College, Oxford, and teaches law at the University of Bristol as a Professor of Labour Law since July 2017.
Dr Jennifer Collins is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol, having joined the Law School as a Lecturer in 2014. Prior to her appointment at Bristol, she lectured at St Peter's College, Oxford, from 2011 until 2014. She read Law as an Undergraduate and Postgraduate at the University of Oxford, reading for a BA in Law, the Bachelor in Civil Law, and a DPhil in Law.
Professor Mark Freedland's academic career has been spent at the University of Oxford, in which he was until 2012 Professor of Employment Law and a Law Fellow of St John's College. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Employment Law at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Research Fellow of St John's College Oxford, and also an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Laws of University College London where he was originally a student. In 2000, he was made Docteur honoris causa, University of Paris II (Pantheon-Assas); in 2002, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA); in 2013, he was appointed as a Queen's Counsel Honoris Causa (QC (Hon)).
Professor Jonathan Herring is currently Professor of Law and DW Wolfe-Clarendon Fellow at Exeter College, University of Oxford. Previously, he was a Fellow in Law at New Hall, Cambridge.
