Julilly Kohler-Hausmann
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691174525
- eISBN:
- 9781400885183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691174525.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter analyzes the central role of criminalization and welfare fraud in degrading the civic status of welfare recipients and the declining support for the program. Politicians, such as Ronald ...
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This chapter analyzes the central role of criminalization and welfare fraud in degrading the civic status of welfare recipients and the declining support for the program. Politicians, such as Ronald Reagan, blamed soaring caseloads not on the economic conditions or the recent legal reforms that prohibited states from denying aid on the basis of race or morality, but on personal failings of recipients, particularly the alleged preponderance of sexually deviant welfare “cheaters.” To manage this problem, they often enlisted law enforcement and penal rituals. The press amplified politicians' narrative through sensationalized, often anomalous, tales of recipients' shiftlessness, devious scams, and extravagant consumption.Less
This chapter analyzes the central role of criminalization and welfare fraud in degrading the civic status of welfare recipients and the declining support for the program. Politicians, such as Ronald Reagan, blamed soaring caseloads not on the economic conditions or the recent legal reforms that prohibited states from denying aid on the basis of race or morality, but on personal failings of recipients, particularly the alleged preponderance of sexually deviant welfare “cheaters.” To manage this problem, they often enlisted law enforcement and penal rituals. The press amplified politicians' narrative through sensationalized, often anomalous, tales of recipients' shiftlessness, devious scams, and extravagant consumption.
Kaaryn S. Gustafson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732311
- eISBN:
- 9780814733394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732311.003.0007
- Subject:
- Law, Employment Law
This chapter examines welfare recipients' resistance to, and investment in, law's legitimacy when their formal compliance with the law was often tenuous. Drawing on interviews with thirty-four ...
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This chapter examines welfare recipients' resistance to, and investment in, law's legitimacy when their formal compliance with the law was often tenuous. Drawing on interviews with thirty-four welfare recipients in a Northern California county, it considers how welfare recipients reacted to the criminalization of poverty and the ways resistance can maintain and reinforce systems of domination, along with the recipients' limited capacity to mobilize for political change. It also explains how recipients become entangled in welfare fraud and the target of welfare fraud investigations and criminal prosecutions, and why they do not comply with welfare laws. Finally, it analyzes existing notions of political resistance and noncompliance with welfare rules.Less
This chapter examines welfare recipients' resistance to, and investment in, law's legitimacy when their formal compliance with the law was often tenuous. Drawing on interviews with thirty-four welfare recipients in a Northern California county, it considers how welfare recipients reacted to the criminalization of poverty and the ways resistance can maintain and reinforce systems of domination, along with the recipients' limited capacity to mobilize for political change. It also explains how recipients become entangled in welfare fraud and the target of welfare fraud investigations and criminal prosecutions, and why they do not comply with welfare laws. Finally, it analyzes existing notions of political resistance and noncompliance with welfare rules.
Kaaryn S. Gustafson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732311
- eISBN:
- 9780814733394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732311.003.0003
- Subject:
- Law, Employment Law
This chapter examines the increasing criminalization of the welfare system and welfare recipients. In particular, it considers the growing overlap between the welfare system and the criminal justice ...
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This chapter examines the increasing criminalization of the welfare system and welfare recipients. In particular, it considers the growing overlap between the welfare system and the criminal justice system and how welfare recipients get entangled in law's expansive punitive power. It first discusses the welfare system as a tool of law enforcement, citing the fugitive felon prohibitions, Operation Talon, and the drug felony lifetime ban as examples. It then explains how numerous sections of the federal welfare reform legislation of 1996, along with many of the laws and policies implemented by the states, embrace both the goals and the methods of the criminal justice system. It also explores programs that have been implemented to prevent welfare cheating and to police the poor more generally, along with welfare policies in California and welfare fraud investigations carried out in the state. The chapter concludes with an overview of nationwide trends in the criminalization of poverty and especially welfare cheating.Less
This chapter examines the increasing criminalization of the welfare system and welfare recipients. In particular, it considers the growing overlap between the welfare system and the criminal justice system and how welfare recipients get entangled in law's expansive punitive power. It first discusses the welfare system as a tool of law enforcement, citing the fugitive felon prohibitions, Operation Talon, and the drug felony lifetime ban as examples. It then explains how numerous sections of the federal welfare reform legislation of 1996, along with many of the laws and policies implemented by the states, embrace both the goals and the methods of the criminal justice system. It also explores programs that have been implemented to prevent welfare cheating and to police the poor more generally, along with welfare policies in California and welfare fraud investigations carried out in the state. The chapter concludes with an overview of nationwide trends in the criminalization of poverty and especially welfare cheating.
Kaaryn S. Gustafson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732311
- eISBN:
- 9780814733394
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732311.003.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Employment Law
This book examines the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare in the United States and how welfare use has resulted in the criminalization of poverty. Today's welfare system ...
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This book examines the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare in the United States and how welfare use has resulted in the criminalization of poverty. Today's welfare system treats those who use public benefits, or who even apply for benefits, as latent criminals. Changes in public attitudes and government practices have led to the so-called criminalization of poverty. Hence, many welfare policies are primarily intended to deter welfare use, to guard against misuse, and to punish welfare cheating. Despite this criminalization of the welfare system, poor families continue breaking the rules of welfare receipt and continue hiding information from welfare officials. This book analyzes the welfare system from two vantage points: from the policy level and from the perspective of those who use public benefits. It explores the construction of welfare fraud and the ways that welfare recipients cheat the welfare system as well as the ways that the existing system is at odds with the welfare of families as well as the welfare of society.Less
This book examines the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare in the United States and how welfare use has resulted in the criminalization of poverty. Today's welfare system treats those who use public benefits, or who even apply for benefits, as latent criminals. Changes in public attitudes and government practices have led to the so-called criminalization of poverty. Hence, many welfare policies are primarily intended to deter welfare use, to guard against misuse, and to punish welfare cheating. Despite this criminalization of the welfare system, poor families continue breaking the rules of welfare receipt and continue hiding information from welfare officials. This book analyzes the welfare system from two vantage points: from the policy level and from the perspective of those who use public benefits. It explores the construction of welfare fraud and the ways that welfare recipients cheat the welfare system as well as the ways that the existing system is at odds with the welfare of families as well as the welfare of society.
Kaaryn S. Gustafson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814732311
- eISBN:
- 9780814733394
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814732311.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Employment Law
Over the last three decades, welfare policies have been informed by popular beliefs that welfare fraud is rampant. As a result, welfare policies have become more punitive and the boundaries between ...
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Over the last three decades, welfare policies have been informed by popular beliefs that welfare fraud is rampant. As a result, welfare policies have become more punitive and the boundaries between the welfare system and the criminal justice system have blurred—so much so that in some locales prosecution caseloads for welfare fraud exceed welfare caseloads. In reality, some recipients manipulate the welfare system for their own ends, others are gravely hurt by punitive policies, and still others fall somewhere in between. This book endeavors to clear up these gray areas by providing insights into the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare. It shows why welfare cheating is all but inevitable—not because poor people are immoral, but because ordinary individuals navigating complex systems of rules are likely to become entangled despite their best efforts. Through an examination of the construction of the crime we know as welfare fraud, the book challenges readers to question their assumptions about welfare policies, welfare recipients, and crime control in the United States.Less
Over the last three decades, welfare policies have been informed by popular beliefs that welfare fraud is rampant. As a result, welfare policies have become more punitive and the boundaries between the welfare system and the criminal justice system have blurred—so much so that in some locales prosecution caseloads for welfare fraud exceed welfare caseloads. In reality, some recipients manipulate the welfare system for their own ends, others are gravely hurt by punitive policies, and still others fall somewhere in between. This book endeavors to clear up these gray areas by providing insights into the history, social construction, and lived experience of welfare. It shows why welfare cheating is all but inevitable—not because poor people are immoral, but because ordinary individuals navigating complex systems of rules are likely to become entangled despite their best efforts. Through an examination of the construction of the crime we know as welfare fraud, the book challenges readers to question their assumptions about welfare policies, welfare recipients, and crime control in the United States.
Lisa S. Nelson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014779
- eISBN:
- 9780262289689
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014779.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
The use of biometric technology for identification has gone from Orwellian fantasy to everyday reality. This technology, which verifies or recognizes a person's identity based on physiological, ...
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The use of biometric technology for identification has gone from Orwellian fantasy to everyday reality. This technology, which verifies or recognizes a person's identity based on physiological, anatomical, or behavioral patterns (including fingerprints, retina, handwriting, and keystrokes) has been deployed for such purposes as combating welfare fraud, screening airplane passengers, and identifying terrorists. The accompanying controversy has pitted those who praise the technology's accuracy and efficiency against advocates for privacy and civil liberties. This book investigates the complex public responses to biometric technology. The author uses societal perceptions of this particular identification technology to explore the values, beliefs, and ideologies that influence public acceptance of technology. Drawing on her own extensive research with focus groups and a national survey, she finds that considerations of privacy, anonymity, trust and confidence in institutions, and the legitimacy of paternalistic government interventions, are extremely important to users and potential users of the technology. The author examines the long history of government systems of identification and the controversies they have inspired; the effect of the information technology revolution and the events of September 11, 2001; the normative value of privacy (as opposed to its merely legal definition); the place of surveillance technologies in a civil society; trust in government and distrust in the expanded role of government; and the balance between the need for government to act to prevent harm and the possible threat to liberty in the government's actions.Less
The use of biometric technology for identification has gone from Orwellian fantasy to everyday reality. This technology, which verifies or recognizes a person's identity based on physiological, anatomical, or behavioral patterns (including fingerprints, retina, handwriting, and keystrokes) has been deployed for such purposes as combating welfare fraud, screening airplane passengers, and identifying terrorists. The accompanying controversy has pitted those who praise the technology's accuracy and efficiency against advocates for privacy and civil liberties. This book investigates the complex public responses to biometric technology. The author uses societal perceptions of this particular identification technology to explore the values, beliefs, and ideologies that influence public acceptance of technology. Drawing on her own extensive research with focus groups and a national survey, she finds that considerations of privacy, anonymity, trust and confidence in institutions, and the legitimacy of paternalistic government interventions, are extremely important to users and potential users of the technology. The author examines the long history of government systems of identification and the controversies they have inspired; the effect of the information technology revolution and the events of September 11, 2001; the normative value of privacy (as opposed to its merely legal definition); the place of surveillance technologies in a civil society; trust in government and distrust in the expanded role of government; and the balance between the need for government to act to prevent harm and the possible threat to liberty in the government's actions.
