NCJ Number
149809
Date Published
1994
Length
187 pages
Annotation
Based on research literature, court rulings, worker opinions, and theories of ideological and legal politics, this volume explores the political and legal controversy over employee drug testing.
Abstract
The analysis focuses on how the imagery of a national drug crisis served as the legitimating context for the introduction of testing. It cites survey research among skilled workers and analyzes judicial opinions, concluding that the United States Supreme Court ruling on the subject undermines future opposition to policies of general surveillance. Thus, the author concludes that testing represents a victory for the conservative law-and-order movement and a loss for the values of privacy and autonomy as well as the institutional frameworks that support them. The analysis also suggests that employee drug testing represents one episode in a broader move toward a surveillance-oriented society and explores its implications for future struggles over revolutionary new means of surveillance and control. Tables, chapter notes, index, and 207 references (Publisher summary modified)