ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests the idea of the ‘complexion’ of the regulatory environment provides an important focus for tracking the shift from reliance on the moral regulatory register to the prudential register, and then from normative to non-normative registers and strategies. The concerns that have been expressed with regard to the complexion of the regulatory environment assume that the regulatory interventions in question are directed at human interactions in viable communities rather than at the generic infrastructure presupposed by such interactions. Starting with the idea of the ‘regulatory registers’ and their relevance, we find that technological management relies on neither of the traditional normative registers. Technological management might be used, in place of the classic criminal laws, to prevent the infliction of intentional harm on persons, or their property, or to extract money from them; but it might also be used to replace regulatory crimes because it is possible to use a technological fix to make workplaces and the like safer for humans.
