Regulatory Compliance Procedural Drift or Lack of Enforcement

Attached is a very interesting blog post on regulatory compliance procedural drift: Why do people violate rules? The concept of procedural drift. It is an interesting read and makes a great deal of sense from a behavioral psychology point of view. However, as I read it (and I recommend everyone read it first before continuing with this blog post), it got me thinking about the relationship between regulatory compliance and enforcement or the lack thereof. So, when you come to the graphic on page 2 of the attached article, I substituted in my mind “enforcement” for “time” and essentially came up with the relationship that without enforcement you will have regulatory compliance procedural drift in which a new normal is established but at a lower level than originally promulgated. This is an alternate spin or explanation to the original thesis in Dr Dekker’s theory related to behavioral psychology. However, I think both explanations could co-exist and there is value added in applying procedural drift to the regulatory science field. 

There is an extension to this regulatory compliance procedural drift concept as it relates to the lack of enforcement relationship that does become troubling. I am not as concerned about the establishment of a new normal but what I would be more concerned about is the random application of enforcement which would create a very dangerous situation. For example, let’s go back to the article and the scenario of the traffic light. Having established the new normal (three cars going through a red light) which obviously is not in regulatory compliance with the original rule (no cars go through a red light) has been accepted overtime, but it is consistent. It is the new normal. However, what happens if this is coupled with random enforcement in which one car passes versus three cars pass and there is no rhyme or reason to this determination. Regulatory compliance would bottom out (fewer cars would follow the rule because it is constantly changing) and the outcome (number of accidents) would increase exponentially.  

This re-interpretation of Dr Dekker’s procedural drift is provided as an extended regulatory compliance issue when enforcement is either lacking or randomly applied because enforcement of rules in regulatory administration is an important issue. It also would be interesting to apply various enforcement strategies to determine their impact on procedural drift. This would be another example of regulatory science being applied to regulatory administration. Procedural drift is an interesting concept and one that does need further exploration as it relates to regulatory compliance. One area I want to explore in greater detail is its relationship to the regulatory compliance theory of diminishing returns and the ceiling/plateauing effect observed in regulatory compliance data when compared to program quality.