Women on Welfare: In Crime or Injustice? (From Gender, Crime and Justice, P 28-42, 1987, Pat Carlen, Anne Worral, eds. -- See NCJ-127255)

• NCJ Number: 127257
• Author(s): D Cook
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: Open University Press
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This analysis of welfare policies in Great Britain argues that females' involvement in fraudulent claims for supplementary benefits and the procedures used by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) to address fraud result from policies based on society's discriminatory attitudes toward women.

Abstract

Current conservative political and economic philosophy regards women on welfare as deviant due to their lack of economic and emotional dependence on a male. In addition, any fraud related to welfare payments is likely to provoke a negative reaction not only to the criminal act, but also to the woman's deviant personal status. Furthermore, the regulation of female supplementary benefits claims rests on both the formal rules and the informal social norms of the Department of Health and Social Security. As a result, the lives of women living on welfare are characterized by privation, degradation, and inequity; their involvement in economic crime results mainly from the inadequacy of the welfare payments rather than from greed. 3 reference notes