A spin cycle too fast

There's a headline in Metro today: Why your boss may be a "cold blooded killer". The quote is from Dr David White of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at the University of London's King's College.

Dr White is publicising a new report he co-wrote which argues that HSE budget cuts and a culture of lighter enforcement mean that occupational fatalities are often underinvestigated. The report contrasts the total of 1400 work-related deaths in 2006-07 (excluding occupational diseases but including at-work road deaths) with the numbers killed through violent crime (about half as many), saying there is a moral panic about street murder while the bigger total is ignored or misreported in a culture of silence.

So far, so reasonable. The report makes some decent points, but White, who is on the board of the pressure group the Centre for Corporate Accountability risks undermining his own point by telling the press workplace deaths are "cold-blooded and planned more than street murders". Negligence is may be as terrible as viciousness in its effects sometimes, and there are moves to better recognise that in the recent corporate manslughter legislation and the current sentencing bill but the two are not the same thing.