2023.3

there is some kind of ‘trade-off between welfare and incarceration’ (Beckett and Western 2001: 51), or that welfare and punishment are in some way ‘functional equivalents’. It is true that, generally speaking, countries which spend less on welfare resort most to imprisonment and other harsh penalties. The conclusion could be drawn that welfare and punishment are alternative methods for the social control of those who live on the margins of society (and hence are potentially deviant).