Criminalizing Race, Criminalizing Poverty: Welfare Fraud Enforcement in Canada

Arguing that people of color are most often the casualties in the governments' desire to roll back the welfare state, this analysis delves into the current myths and stereotypes about racial difference. In exploring such myths in conjunction with the enforcement of welfare fraud policies, this study shows how people of color are constructed as potential "cheaters" and "abusers" of the system, and how this has allowed for the stigmatizing and discriminatory treatment of certain races to persist unchallenged. With an analysis of the criminalization and penalization of poverty—including the increased surveillance and control of welfare recipients—this argument sheds new light on the perspectives of poverty advocates.