'Just culture:' Improving safety by achieving substantive, procedural and restorative justice. (June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dekker, Sidney W.A.; Breakey, Hugh
• Is Part Of: Safety science. Volume 85(2016)
• Page Start: 187
• Page End: 193
• Publication Date: 2016-06
• Subjects: Just culture -- Accountability -- Human error -- Violations -- Restorative justice; Industrial accidents -- Periodicals; Accident Prevention -- Periodicals; Safety -- Periodicals; Travail -- Accidents -- Périodiques; 363.11
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2016.01.018
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0925-7535

Abstract

Highlights: 'Just culture' eschews important moral and safety issues. Just culture focuses mostly on retributive justice. Procedural and substantive legitimacy is ignored. Learning from failure is not demonstrated. Just culture on restoration, not retribution, is proposed. Abstract: A 'just culture' aims to respond to anxiety about blame-free approaches on the one hand, and a concern about people's willingness to keep reporting safety-related issues on the other. A just culture sets out the conditions that legitimize managerial intervention in the sanction or restoration of individuals in the organization. In this paper we examine the manifestly important moral and safety issues that a just culture needs to consider. These include substantive justice which prescribes how regulations, rules and procedures themselves are fair and legitimate; procedural justice which sets down processes for determining rule-breaches, offers protections for the accused, and governs who should make such determinations; and restorative justice which aims to restore the status of the individual involved and heal relationships and injuries of victims and the wider community in the wake of an ethical breach. Just culture approaches need to provide such foundations for a genuinely just safety culture, to be conducive to reporting, engagement and safety improvement.