Criminals and the welfare state

One in three people claiming unemployment benefit is a convicted criminal, reports the Mail. This the first time a government has looked at how many benefit claimants have a conviction.

Taxpayers are funding around £2billion a year in out-of-work payments to nearly 1.3million people with criminal records, including £1.2billion to those on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The rest of the money is paid to offenders who claim income support as lone parents or receive Incapacity Benefit and its replacement, Employment Support Allowance.

The Mail's interpretation is that "the figures lay bare the degree to which an ‘underclass’ that drifts in and out of criminal activity is using state handouts to bolster its income, while often continuing a life of crime". Or, of course, ex-criminals may find it very hard to get a job.

Two years after being released from prison in 2008, 47% of offenders were on out-of-work benefits and three out of four offenders made a new claim to an out-of-work benefit at some point between 2008 and 2010 - figures that could support either interpretation. There's probably truth in both.

Of the 1.2million total claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance open on December 1, 2010 in England and Wales, 33% were made by offenders.

26% of the 4.9million people claiming some sort of out-of-work benefit were offenders who had received at least one caution or conviction between 2000 and 2010. Of those, 5% of the total claims were made by offenders who had been released from prison over the past ten years.

Astonishingly, 51% of offenders sentenced or cautioned in England and Wales in the year ending November 2010 had claimed one of the main out-of-work benefits at some point in the month before they were sentenced.

This gives another angle to a Labour opposition trying to forge a distinctive policy on benefits. Could Labour emerge more hawkish on benefits than the coalition? We'll have to wait and see.