Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Social Science Poverty & Homelessness

Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty

Welfare Fraud Enforcement in Canada

by (author) Wendy Chan & Kiran Mirchandani

Publisher
Fernwood Publishing
Initial publish date
Jan 2007
Category
Poverty & Homelessness
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781552662502
    Publish Date
    Jan 2007
    List Price
    $21.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

The criminalization and penalization of poverty through increased surveillance and control of welfare recipients in recent years has led many poverty advocates to claim that “a war against the poor” is currently in progress. The authors argue that people of colour are most often the casualties in the governments’ desire to roll back the welfare state. Relying on myths and stereotypes about racial difference, the enforcement and policing of welfare fraud policies constructs people of colour as potential “cheaters” and “abusers” of the system. This has allowed for the stigmatizing and discriminatory treatment of people of colour to persist unchallenged within the welfare system.

About the authors

Wendy Chan is Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University, author of numerous articles and books on crime and immigration, and co-editor of Crimes of Colour: Racialization and the Criminal Justice System in Canada (2001).

Wendy Chan's profile page

 

Kiran Mirchandani is associate professor in the Department of Adult Education and Counselling Psychology at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her research focuses on home-based work, telework, contingent work,entrepreneurship, transnational service work and self-employment.

 

Kiran Mirchandani's profile page

Excerpt: Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty: Welfare Fraud Enforcement in Canada (by (author) Wendy Chan & Kiran Mirchandani)