Unit information: Criminalising Welfare in 2021/22

Unit name	Criminalising Welfare
Unit code	SPOL20043
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Kirwan
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School for Policy Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

This unit provides you with an understanding of how welfare benefits systems, which provide financial support to those in need, are being absorbed into, and increasingly resemble, criminal justice systems.

The unit aims to enable you to

Critically examine the ways that welfare systems have become more punitive (e.g. through ‘sanctions’, enforced unpaid labour and direct deductions from income)

Understand how claiming state welfare is increasingly experienced in criminal and punitive terms

Explore and analyse discourses of 'scrounging' and 'benefits fraud'

Evaluate different explanations for why it is that the provision of welfare benefits is prone to being understood as something to be approached through models of crime control.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the unit, students will be able to:

1. Identify the ways that criminal justice system logics have increasingly shaped welfare benefits policies in advanced liberal democracies;
2. Mobilise examples of the way that welfare can be used to regulate, control and direct;
3. Apply key theoretical shifts in the field to these practices and structures;
4. Provide contrasting perspectives on recent changes to welfare, including sources of resistance

Teaching Information

Teaching will be delivered through blended learning involving a combination of synchronous and asynchronous sessions. Lectures will be run as three weekly videos (only one of which will be a narrated powerpoint, covering key conceptual/theoretical points) interspersed with interactive online activities and other tasks to be carried out by students. Synchronous study group sessions will be supplemented by reading-groups

Assessment Information

Part 1: Case Study (1000 words) 30%

This assessment covers ILOs 1&2

Part 2: Essay (2000 words) (70%)

This assessment covers ILOs 1-4

Resources

If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.

If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. SPOL20043).

How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks, independent learning and assessment activity.

See the Faculty workload statement relating to this unit for more information.

Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit. The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. If you have self-certificated your absence from an assessment, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (this is usually in the next assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any extenuating circumstances and operates within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.