Punishment or Payment?

Economic Sanctions Towards Cash Benefit Recipients

Abstract

This article is about economic sanctions towards cash benefit recipients in Denmark. The point of departure is a study of who gets sanctioned and how the municipalities perceive and use sanction as a tool. There has been a substantial rise in the number of economic sanctions towards cash benefit recipients. This is also the case for cash benefit recipients who have problems besides unemployment. In the article we analyse how municipalities administer the discretionary latitude of client availability. Especially when it comes to demands placed on clients with complex problems besides unemployment. Furthermore, we ask how municipalities, with a high sanction rate, manage to link legislation and political objectives to the concrete acts of sanctioning cash benefit recipients. The theoretical point of departure is Brunsson’s theory of justification and organisational hypocrisy. The conclusion points towards a discrepancy between talk and action when it comes to economic sanctions of cash benefit recipients. With an empirical starting point in two municipalities with a high sanction rate, we show how the municipalities justify the practice of sanctioning with a reference to legislation in which sanctions are understood as an involuntary element. Minimising professional discretion is justified through arguments of legal rights of the cash benefit recipient. At the same time we find signs of organisational hypocrisy. This takes the shape of emphasising the need for professional discretion in the individual case on the one hand while constructing a municipal organisation that supports automatic execution of sanctions to cash benefit recipients on the other.