The Governance of Social Marginality in the UK: Towards the Centaur State?
| Author | Del Roy Fletcher |
| Position | Professor |
| Pages | 19-34 |
19
THE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIAL MARGINALITY IN THE
UK: TOWARDS THE CENTAUR STATE?
Professor Del Roy Fletcher, Professor of Labour Market Studies, The Centre for Regional
Economic and Social Research (CRESR)
Abstract
Burgeoning prison populations and the growing use of compulsion in welfare policies
across much of the western world has stimulated a great deal of academic discussion.
Drawing on U.S experience Wacquant (2009) argues that a 'centaur state' has emerged
which involves the 'double regulation of the poor' by the development of workfare and the
expansion of the prison system. This article critically discusses the salience o f these ideas to
the U.K. It draws upon historical analysis to revea l the important continuities with the
inter-war period which was also cha racterised by rising prison populations and the
introduction of workfare in the brutalising form of labour camps. It then considers recent
attempts to join up welfare and pena l policies and finds that these have been frustrated by
the behaviour of front-line staff operating in a context of acute resource constraints and
growing workloads.
Key words: social marginality; employment; offenders; welfare reform.
British Journal of Community Justice
©2013 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 11(1):19-34
Fletcher
20
Introduction
Burgeoning prison populations and the growing use of compulsion in welfare policies
across much of the western world have stimulated a great deal of academic debate. In the
UK the prison population stands at record levels and the benefits syst em has been
characterised by growing co mpulsion. Wilson and Pickett (2010) show that Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and US states that spend
the least on social welfare have the highest rates of imprisonment. Cavadino and Dignan
(2006) have linked penal policy with p olitical economy. Neo -liberal states are both more
unequal and punitive. They speculate that punishment may be a 'negative reward':
societies that are prepared to reward success with higher in comes and greater social
status are also more willing to punish failure with both poverty and formal sanctions.
Downes and Hansen (2006) have also found that 'penal expansion and welfare
contraction' have become more pronounced over the last twenty years. The
'transcarceration' thesis has been advanced in which 'penal and welfare institutions have
come to form a single policy regime aimed at the governance of social marginality'
(Beckett & Western, 2001, page 55). Furthermore, 'reduced welfare expenditu res are not
indicative o f a shift towards reduced government intervention in social life but rather a
shift toward a more exclusionary and punitive ap proach to the regulation of social
marginality' (Beckett & Western, 2001, page 55).
Wacquant (2009) views these developments as parad igmatic of the way neo-liberal
Governments deal with growing social insecurity. He argues that a new ty pe of neo-liberal
political regime has emerged, the 'centaur state'. Accordin g to Wacquant (2009, page 4),
the 'centaur state' involves a triple transformation of the state includ ing the 'amputation
of its economic arm, the retraction of its social bosom, and the massive expansion of its
penal fist'. It is 'guided by a liberal head mounted on an authoritarian body' (Wacquant,
2009, page 43). The result has been the 'double regulation of the poor' that involves, on
the one hand, the decline of the Keynesian welfare state and its replacement with a
workfare state, and on the other hand, the criminalisation of the poor and the expansion
of the prison system. The centaur analogy was first used by Machiavelli (and subsequently
by Gramsci) to refer to the diversity of strategies of rule deploy ed by the state towards
various social classes combining a mixture of coercion and consent (Squires and Lea, 2012).
For Wacquant it refers to a neo-liberal state that retains strategies of consent towards
corporations and the upper classes but is authoritarian and coercive towards the poorest.
The 'centaur state' is predicat ed on the notion that there has been an historical rupture in
the approach taken to social marginality. Wacquant (2009) argues that this shift began in
the mid-1970s and has prevailed through a neo-liberal hegemony. This article seeks to
make a distinctive con tribution to the debate about the relevance of these ideas to the
U.K. by undertaking an historical analysis of the treatment of the long -term unemployed in
the benefits system during the inter -war period. This i s particularly illuminating gi ven the
ahistorical nature o f much of the debate. It goes on to draw upon the findings of
contemporary research to discuss the contention that welfare and penal policies work in
concert to push offenders into th e secondary lab our market. A key finding is that front-
line practice intended to prepare offenders for the UK labour market has severely
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