The criminalization of human error in aviation and healthcare: A review

This review explores the social causes and psychological and organizational consequences of the criminalization of human error in aviation and healthcare. Increasing prevalence of criminal prosecution is seen as a threat to the health and safety of employees and entire safety–critical systems in many industries, but initiatives to counter or mitigate the trend are local and haphazard. Social causes such as a greater societal risk consciousness and intolerance of failure are examined, as well as organizational consequences for disclosure and incident reporting. Psychological consequences of the criminalization of human error are evaluated in terms of employee ill-health, an area that is under-investigated. The criminalization of professional mistakes seems to be an increasingly prevalent phenomenon at the intersection of safety work, sociology, criminology and legal as well as social justice. This paper reviews possible research directions into the criminalization of professional mistake in aviation and healthcare, in the hope of stimulating debate and eventually legitimating it as a topic of study in its own right.

Research highlights
► This review explores the social causes and psychological and organizational consequences of the criminalization of human error in aviation and healthcare, where a safety threat is recognized but initiatives to counter a criminalization trend are often local and haphazard.
► There is no coherent program of research into the social causes of a trend toward criminalization in aviation or healthcare, nor into the psychosocial or psychological consequences of criminalization for those involved.
► Safety-related fears of criminalization include interference with safety reporting and disclosure of errors, the inevitability of mistake in complex, dynamic worlds (i.e. it cannot be punished away), and the deflection of efforts at system improvements to the benefit of pursuing or defending individuals.
► Criminalization likely exacerbates the consequences of professional mistakes, such as self-blame and guilt, depression and anxiety.
► Further research should be directed at systematic, quantitative investigations of the effects of criminalization (both system-level and individual) that go beyond individual case studies.