The Deserving and Undeserving: Victims and Scroungers in Criminology and Social Policy

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Know the literature around "deservedness" in social policy. How and why have distinctions been made between the deserving and the undeserving? You will be able to identify these different types of social policies.
• Be able to relate discourse and policies about victims and the deserving/undeserving to dominant political ideologies (e.g. neoliberalism and social democracy).
• Be able to assess the benefits and drawbacks of different types of justice (criminal, procedural and restorative) for victims.
• Be familiar with examples of the policy split between deserving and undeserving recipients of benefits (e.g. migrants, refugees, the unemployed).
• Be able to demonstrate the ways that the media and policy represent victims.
• Know the literature around victim-status attribution, and whether constituting a victim is as simple as being on the receiving end of harm.

After an introduction, we investigate the circumstances in which governments and social policies distinguish between those deserving of public benefits and those who do not. We explore such policies from a historical perspective and for the UK today. We then turn to the question of how the “ideal victim” (Spalek 2006) has been publicly defined and contrast this with the non-ideal victim, again taking a historical and contemporary view. On this basis we reflect on recent policy changes within the criminal justice system that attempt to provide greater power (or at least greater satisfaction) to the victim of crime. This section compares restorative, procedural and other victim-oriented changes in criminal justice. It explores to what extent these changes have actually improved the treatment of victims in criminal justice.

In the final part we return to the question of how deservingness and stigma are created by the welfare state, the public and the media. We focus on the UK and the US as countries with a liberal welfare state. We discuss how social policy, the media and the public distinguish between un/deserving claimants. We relate this to dominant political ideologies, drawing in more detail on neo-liberalism and social democracy. 

Overall, after taking this course you will know a lot more about the similarities between "ideal" victims and respectable benefit recipients and between non-respectable victims and benefit "scroungers". You will also know what policies reinforce or alleviate stigma.

The module will be delivered by 15 one hour lectures and 4 one hour tutorials.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.