Policing Welfare Fraud: The Government of Welfare Fraud and Non-Compliance [Hardcover]

Policing Welfare Fraud charts and interrogates the suite of measures ostensibly designed to combat welfare fraud and non-compliance.

'In the aftermath of Australias internationally infamous Robodebt scandal, Policing Welfare Fraud is a must read for understanding the decades long blending of the welfare and penal states in Australia. Through incisive empirical analysis, Wilcock demonstrates how welfare is governed through fraud, even though most debts are not fraudulent. She contests grand narratives of the criminalisation of poverty, showing that welfare compliance regimes are more messy, contradictory and complicated, thus highlighting how contemporary welfare can be otherwise enacted.'

Professor Paul Henman, Professor for Digital Sociology & Social Policy, University of Queensland

'An incisive and sophisticated examination of how Australias welfare compliance regime emerged from a program of neo-liberal welfare 'reform' which seeks to stigmatise 'welfare dependency', 'govern through fraud', assemble punitive compliance regimes and criminalise welfare recipients. Compelling reading.'

Emeritus Professor David Brown, Faculty of Law and Justice, University of New South Wales

1 Introduction

2 A History of Welfare Fraud Policing

3 Governing Welfare Fraud and Non-compliance in Neoliberal Times

4 Preventing or Pre-empting Welfare Compliance? Policing the Borders of the Welfare State

5 Managing Risky Recipients: Data Mining Risk Profiling and Tiered Compliance Reviews

6 Making Welfare Fraud Evl$