Introduction

Welfare and penal policies are inextricably linked and interrelated social and political phenomena, which therefore need to be analysed in unison. The reduction of the social state and the expansion in the rates of imprisonment are joint strategies by governments. The punitive shifts that led to the increase in prison populations from the late 1970s onwards in England and Wales have had a much broader influence than simply in the area of criminal justice, having helped to entrench views about the nature of marginalised groups or populations. This chapter will examine the genealogy of the penal state and the various explanations for its development. Penal policy and social provision are used to provide or give the illusion of social stability. Developments in these areas are often a response to a crisis of legitimacy. This chapter will argue that the crisis in the late 1970s that led to the advent of neoliberalism led not only to new economic policies, but also to linked new social policies that stigmatise marginal groups. The supporters of these policies argued that the retrenchment of the welfare state was necessary because of a state fiscal crisis. The spectacle of punitivism also served to convince voters that social investment was counterproductive as the management of the ‘underclass’ could only be achieved through coercion – in the areas of welfare and penal policy.

Welfare and penal policy and the end of history

The term ‘homo economicus’ is used in economic theory and modelling to represent the individual rational agent. In these models, homo economicus is a forward-looking rational agent who only pursues their own self-interest and makes decisions that are of most benefit to them. There are huge philosophical disputes about how realistic the figure of homo economicus is, though there is not the space to examine those in depth here. However, for political and economic ideas in the period 1979–2015, homo economicus was a key concept. The basis of the wider philosophy of neoliberalism is that individual rational agents will not act in ways that run counter to their own self-interest. From the conception of the figure of homo economicus much else flows. In particular, it is the basis of the attack on welfare provision, and Becker's (1968) development of rational choice theory and its application to crime and punishment is rooted in the figure of homo economicus.