Introduction

This chapter explores the lived experiences of women at the penalwelfare nexus, a space where social and penal policy overlap. ‘Penalwelfarism’ was initially used as a term to reflect the shift towards welfarist and rehabilitative policies associated with the post Second World War welfare settlement (Esping-Anderson, 1996; Garland, 2001). Since the 1980s, public policy has taken a more punitive trajectory, which has resulted in a more expansive and punitive criminal justice system as well as the penalisation of welfare (Foucault, 1977; Pratt et al, 2005; Bumiller, 2013).

This chapter focuses specifically on women who have been subject to criminal justice supervision and interventions in the community and who are in receipt of social assistance benefits. It highlights their attempts to move away from the social margins, reintegrate into society and move closer to the labour market. It draws on new empirical data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 24 women who have offended or who are considered to be ‘at risk’ of offending, conducted in two UK cities between January 2016 and February 2017. The chapter examines how UK social institutions, and in particular a welfare system characterised by increasing conditionality, impact on women engaged in community-based services that aim to divert them away from prison and to reduce recidivism. In doing so, it foregrounds the context of gendered precariousness, which criminalised women inhabit at the penal-welfare nexus.

The focus on the use of sanction and support to promote behaviour change is a growing area of research, with evidence suggesting that rather than a ‘hand up’, the welfare system in its current guise can bestow more of a ‘slap down’ (Fletcher and Wright, 2017). This chapter aims to highlight another dynamic of the current welfare regime, by exploring its impact on a specific group of women subject to multiple, overlapping policy aims of the state. The problem for this group is not so much the behaviour change agenda and sanctions that underpin the UK's increasingly conditional social security system; many attempt to live a ‘good life’, and the experience of sanctioning is low.