Spencer Headworth - Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance

Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...80

Policing Welfare

Policing Welfare

Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance

SPENCER HEADWORTH

The University of Chicago Press

CHICAGO & LONDON

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2021 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN -13: 978-0-226-77922-5 (cloth)

ISBN -13: 978-0-226-77936-2 (paper)

ISBN -13: 978-0-226-77953-9 (e-book)

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226779539.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Headworth, Spencer, author.

Title: Policing welfare : punitive adversarialism in public assistance / Spencer Headworth.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020042827 | ISBN 9780226779225 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226779362 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226779539 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Welfare fraud investigationUnited States. | Welfare fraud investigationUnited StatesCase studies. | Welfare fraudUnited States. | Law enforcementUnited States.

Classification: LCC HV 95 . H 385 2021 | DDC 363.25/963dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020042827

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

To Bob Nelson and Laura Beth Nielsen, who got me where I am

Contents

ADC Aid to Dependent Children

ADH Administrative Disqualification Hearing

AFDC Aid to Families with Dependent Children

CVU Central Verification Unit

DA District Attorney

DMV Department of Motor Vehicles

EBT Electronic Benefit Transfer

EITC Earned Income Tax Credit

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation

FNS USDA Food and Nutrition Service

HEW Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

HFS Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services

HFSOIG Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services Office of Inspector General

HHS Health and Human Services

IEVS Income and Eligibility Verification System

IPV Intentional Program Violation

IRS Internal Revenue Service

ISP Illinois State Police

NPM New Public Management

OIG Office of Inspector General (unless otherwise specified, refers to USDA OIG)

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

PRWORA Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

PTI Pretrial Intervention

SEC Securities and Exchange Commission

SLEB State Law Enforcement Bureau

SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

SSI Supplemental Security Income

TANF Temporary Assistance for Needy Families

UPV Unintentional Program Violation

USDA United States Department of Agriculture

The Strings Attached

How much do they get? What are they saying happened? If its a man in the home [case]... , whats going on? Does it look like it really is something? Yknow, does his DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] address match hers? Does his work address match hers? Thats the main thing. If thats the case, Oh look, we may have something, then let me go investigate a little bit more.

Leslie is a welfare fraud investigator. A White woman in her late thirties, she started her career working in eligibility determination for her states public assistance agency. Now, after moving to its dedicated fraud control unit, she is responsible for investigating and substantiating clients rule violations in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the largest federal nutrition and cash assistance programs, respectively. She detailed the process of getting a referral from a local welfare office asking her to look into potential fraud: driving by the clients home, talking to neighbors, interviewing the client, and building a case strong enough to file charges. If, after her report is compiled and reviewed, her supervisor declares, You know what, its a great report, lets go ahead and file charges, she says, Yesss! and heads to the prosecutors office. Laughing that the prosecutors all know her by name, Leslie described this as her favorite part of her job.

Directing government assistance to needy people is fundamentally a categorization project: determining qualifying characteristics and distinguishing between the eligible and ineligiblethose who merit aid and those who do not. Bureaucracies assess household composition and circumstances to determine eligibility and benefit amounts, translating families characteristics into the states administrative categories. The validation processes they use to check these categorizations accuracy have become integral to need-based public assistance programs. The condition of eligibility is substantially structured by delineating legitimate members: separating people with real disabilities from malingerers, people who cannot work from those who choose idleness, and the deserving poor from scam artists.

Investigators like Leslie are tasked with policing these categories boundaries. In our conversation above, she described a paradigmatic eligibility fraud case, an information-provision offense involving failure to fulfill the duties of transparency and cooperation imposed on clients as conditions of program participation. The modal welfare fraud charge alleges a deliberate misrepresentation or omission intended to skirt eligibility rules, and investigators working in fraud units like Leslies are responsible for compiling evidence of clients alleged rule violations. These investigators jurisdiction and authority are program-specific, and the default punishments for these offenses are administrative: program suspensions and disqualifications, as well as restitution orders for overpayments. As Leslie suggests, however, what begin as administrative investigations can also lead to criminal charges when fraud units refer cases to prosecutors.

Policing Welfare is the first in-depth study of welfare fraud investigation in the United States. Through case studies of five diverse states fraud units, this book explains how the system works and why it is the way it is. Along the way, I make two central claims. First, I argue that fraud units are legal and bureaucratic responses to basic governance questions regarding the social safety net: who to help, how, and with what conditions. Second, I argue that this response has significant effects, particularly for poor people.

The statutory foundation for fraud units as responses to governance questions is in federal law requiring state-level assistance agencies to maintain these investigative entities. This means that fraud workers are trained and socialized to think and act punitively, embracing the criminal legal systems core principles of individual responsibility, deterrence, and just deserts.

Next page

1234567...80

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance»

Look at similar books to Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Bill Jordan

Freedom and the Welfare State

John Murphy

Half a Citizen: Life on Welfare in Australia

William Alexander Robson

Welfare State and Welfare Society: Illusion and Reality

Jie Lei

Chinas Social Welfare Revolution

Michael D. Tanner

The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off: 2013: An Analysis of the Total Level of Welfare Benefits by State

Paul Spicker

Arguments for Welfare: The Welfare State and Social Policy

Dorothy Roberts

Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families--and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World

Krys Maki

Ineligible - Single Mothers Under Welfare Surveillance

Barry Goetz

On the Frontlines of the Welfare State: How the Fire Service and Police Shape Social Problems

Gamble

Can the Welfare State Survive?

Nadasen

Welfare warriors the welfare rights movement in the United States

Mary Ellen Hombs

Welfare reform: a reference handbook

Discussion, reviews of the book Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.