Social Welfare Law Commons^™

Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud And The Moral Regulation Of The 'Never Deserving' Poor, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn

Shelley A. M. Gavigan

The dismantling and restructuring of Keynesian social security programmes have impacted disproportionately on women, especially lone parent mothers, and shifted public discourse and social images from welfare fraud to welfare as fraud, thereby linking poverty, welfare and crime. This article analyzes the current, inordinate focus on 'welfare cheats'. The criminalization of poverty raises theoretical and empirical questions related to regulation, control, and the relationship between them at particular historical moments. Moral regulation scholars working within post-structuralist and post-modern frameworks have developed an influential approach to these issues,however, we situate ourselves in a different stream of critical socio-legal studies that takes …