The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?

Jamie Redman

Sociological Research Online, 2020, vol. 25, issue 1, 84-100

Abstract: The benefit sanction is a dominant activation policy in Britain’s ‘welfare-to-work’ regime. While policymakers believe in their necessity to correct behaviour, research shows benefit sanctions cause additional harm to Britain’s marginalised groups. Drawing upon a small-scale qualitative study, this article first navigates new territory, mapping the ways stigma emerges from the state – channelled through the benefit sanction – and manifests in the lives of sanctioned claimants. Acknowledging wider evidence, the sanction is then argued to have failed as a correctional device. Rather, taking into account Britain’s current politico-economic climate, the sanction appears as a weapon used to incite negative emotion in an attempt to police the boundaries of the labour market, while frequently abandoning some of the UK’s most vulnerable citizens.

Keywords: benefit sanctions; economic citizenship; punishment; stigma; welfare reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:25:y:2020:i:1:p:84-100

DOI: 10.1177/1360780419851132

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