ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews empirical and theoretical arguments regarding the nature of accidents within the chemicals industries, and develops the argument that many of these accidents need to be viewed as corporate crimes. It examines empirical evidence regarding the organisational features that produce accidents within chemicals corporations. The chapter considers the underlying causes of the frequent empirical manifestations of organisational failure, examining second-order causes of such accidents. It argues that the language of accidents is a misleading one, and that many of the incidents framed within that general category ought to be viewed as safety crimes, as one type of the more general phenomenon of corporate crime. Paul Shrivastava expresses concern over the increasing frequency of industrial accidents in the chemicals industries. Some versions of the safety-profits dichotomy tend to pose an overly rationalistic concept of corporate managements, safety efforts, and the causes of industrial accidents.
