Margaret Melrose

Unravelling citizenship The significance of social security benefit fraud

This article discusses the possibility that social security benefit fraud is intelligible as an unravelling of the rights and responsibilities of welfare citizenship. It recounts the findings of a study of the attitudes and moti vations of people engaged in individual benefit fraud, including the dominant discourses engaged in by respondents, their approach to work and their conceptions of citizenship. These are analysed in relation to age, gender and ethnicity and, in so doing, the authors call upon secondary analysis of data from the British Social Attitudes survey. It is concluded that benefit fraud does not signify any erosion of the work ethic or peoples desire to participate in conventional life-styles, but that it is consistent with—if it is not nourished by—an impoverished conception of citizenship.

Manageable Discord: Fraud and Resistance in the Social Security System

This article presents findings from a study of the attitudes and beliefs of social security claimants engaged in benefit fraud. The basis for a taxonomy of such claimants is outlined, drawing upon concepts of reflexivity and anxiety. This is compared and contrasted with other theoretically-drawn taxonomies, one relating to workplace crime, the other to the consumption of social care services. Finally, the article considers whether benefit fraud is intelligible as resistance to social control. It is argued that benefit fraud represents a conservative form of resistance. Benefit fraud does not signify a “culture” of resistance, so much as a “manageable” form of rule-breaking.

Regulating Social Research: Exploring the Implications of Extending Ethical Review Procedures in Social Research

Reflecting on my experience of leading several qualitative research projects to investigate ‘sensitive’ topics with potentially ‘vulnerable’ participants, this paper considers the impact and consequences of increased ethical regulation in relation to my own research field and social research more generally. It argues that extending ethical regulation threatens social research in general, and specifically, threatens the study of ‘sensitive’ topics with ‘vulnerable’ populations. The consequences of increased ethical regulation may contradict its intention and place ‘vulnerable’ participants at greater risk than ‘sensitive’ research undertaken with such groups in earlier historical periods. The paper urges social researchers to act collectively, to engage with ethical regulatory regimes in order to challenge the threats they pose to scholarship, and by doing so, defend the value of social research for advancing knowledge so that our scholarship might better serve the populations we study.

The government's new prostitution strategy: A cheap fix for drug‐using sex workers?

This article considers the recommendations to the governments public consultation exercise for drug‐using sex workers (Home Office, 2004). It argues that the ‘problem’ of drug use by sex workers cannot be separated from wider social problems experienced by this group, especially the problem of poverty. It suggests that the new prostitution strategy conflates drug use and sex work, reducing involvement in the latter to a problem of the former. Thus, other social problems experienced by these women, particularly the problems of poverty and social exclusion, are side‐stepped. By so doing, the government absolves itself of responsibility to tackle the underlying conditions that drive women and young people into prostitution and problematic drug use, leading me to argue that the new strategy offers a ‘cheap fix’ for drug‐using sex workers.

Trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear? A comment on the government's prostitution strategy

The government published A Co‐ordinated Street Prostitution Strategy and Response to ‘Paying the Price’ in January 2006. In this article the proposals are critically assessed. It is argued that whilst there are some beneficial aspects, there is little new in the proposals that are based upon a long‐standing paradigm.

Security Versus Freedom

Our previous chapter distinguished two competing traditions of citizenship, the social-solidaristic and the social-contractual. In this chapter we shall examine how these different traditions are reflected in contemporary popular discourse. The above quotations (taken from interviews conducted in the course of a recent investigation by the authors) each illustrate contemporary applications of these respective traditions. In practice, the traditions are not so easily separated. People seldom self-consciously choose which tradition they will adopt, rather they seek, according to their circumstances, to reconcile competing desires; the desire for security through citizenship with the desire for freedom of choice. In the process, we may — perhaps any of us on occasions — draw upon not one but several, even mutually contradictory, discursive traditions or moral repertoires.

The sexualization of girls and girlhood: causes, consequences and resistance

Britzman, D. P. 1998. Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Davies, C., and K. Robinson. 2010. “Hatching Babies and Stork Deliveries: Risk and Regulation in the Construction of Children’s Sexual Knowledge.” Special Issue: Risky Childhoods. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 11 (3): 249–260. Freud, S. 1976 [1905]. “Infantile Sexuality.” In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, translated by J. Strachey. New York: Basic Books. Robinson, K. H. 2012. “‘Difficult Citizenship’: The Precarious Relationships Between Childhood, Sexuality and Access to Knowledge.” Sexualities 15 (3–4): 257–276.

Street prostitution and community safety: a case of contested meanings?

This article considers the issues of ‘street prostitution’ and ‘community safety’ in terms of the discursive construction of each. It argues that in the late‐modern age, concepts such as ‘community’ and ‘safety’ are problematic and their meaning cannot be taken for granted. The discussion then probes discursive constructions of ‘the prostitute’ and explores the causes of prostitution, its legal regulation and the apparent resilience of street sex markets to various forms of intervention in different places and at different times. The article concludes by considering prostitute women as members of the community and reflects on what this might mean in terms of community safety strategies.

Young people and cannabis use: messages for practitioners

This article is based on a study of 100 young people who were regular marijuana users, which aimed to discover the impact of their drug use on key life transitions. The article identifies the implications for practitioners who work with these young people.

Chaotic clients: an evaluation of an arrest referral scheme

This article describes the conclusions from interviews with drug users who had been referred to treatment services through an arrest referral scheme. It describes the lifestyles, drug use and offending behaviour of the subject group and their reactions to the scheme. It is asserted that the inflexibility of the treatment services prevented success. It is argued that drug treatment services require flexibility, toleration and early intervention in order to be effective.