Employee Drug Testing as Social Control
- 1 September 2002
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Review of Public Personnel Administration
- Vol. 22 (3) , 193-215
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371x0202200302
Abstract
Workplace drug testing is a commonplace practice in the United States. Social control theory, the study of social responses to deviant behavior, provides a useful framework for examining the underlying rationales for employee drug testing. A historical-legal analysis of federal employee drug testing uncovers six contrasting justifications supporting such tests (performance, health, and safety; deterrence; rehabilitation; symbolic; technology; and conflict). The article presents a promising theoretical structure (typology) for studying personnel policies that emerge as the result of new technologies in the workplace. Implications for personnel administrators and first-line managers are also explored.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- Work‐place alcohol and other drug testing: a review of the scientific evidenceDrug and Alcohol Review, 1997
- Privacy and the WorkplaceReview of Public Personnel Administration, 1996
- Employee Drug Testing: Are Cities Complying with the Courts?Public Administration Review, 1996
- Balancing Government Necessity and Public Employee PrivacyAdministration & Society, 1994
- Drug Testing in the Federal Workplace: An Instrumental and Symbolic AssessmentPublic Administration Review, 1991
- Drug treatment and workplace drug testing: Politics, symbolism and organizational dilemmasBehavioral Sciences & the Law, 1991
- Drug testing and social control: Implications for state theoryCrime, Law, and Social Change, 1990
- Workplace Drug Testing as Social ControlInternational Journal of Health Services, 1989
- Testing and DeterrenceJournal of Policy Analysis and Management, 1988
- A Sociological Analysis of the Law of VagrancySocial Problems, 1964