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

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  • Jamie Redman

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Jamie Redman, 2020. "The Benefit Sanction: A Correctional Device or a Weapon of Disgust?," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 84-100, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:25:y:2020:i:1:p:84-100
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780419851132
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    1. Jessica Gerrard & Juliet Watson, 2023. "The Productivity of Unemployment and the Temporality of Employment-to-Come: Older Disadvantaged Job Seekers," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 28(1), pages 21-36, March.
    2. Medvedyuk, Stella & Govender, Piara & Raphael, Dennis, 2021. "The reemergence of Engels’ concept of social murder in response to growing social and health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).

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