The latest benefit fraud crackdown is a grim sign of the times

Increasing prison sentences for benefit cheats is just another shabby attempt to link claiming benefits to fraud

by Johnny Void

Keir Starmer has announced that convicted benefit fraudsters could face up to 10 years in prison. Photograph: Lewis Whyld-WPA Pool/Getty Images

The announcement by the outgoing director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, that people convicted of benefit fraud can now face up to 10 years in prison represents just one more shabby attempt to link fraud and claiming benefits in the minds of the public.

While such a tough sentence is only ever likely to be used for organised and large-scale fraud – such as criminal gangs using multiple false identities – another change due to be made will see more benefit fraud cases prosecuted in the crown courts. This will mean that even lower level offences of this kind are now more likely to attract a prison sentence.

Benefit fraudsters, who now appear to be up there with violent offenders as some of the greatest threats to society, are unlikely to attract much sympathy from the general public. After years of the demonisation of claimants, and thundering government announcements that spending on social security is out of control, even honest claimants are now viewed as little more than criminals.

Already unemployed people can be sent to work unpaid for 120 hours a week on the mandatory work activity scheme if jobcentre staff decide they aren't trying hard enough to find a job. This is similar to a mid-level community payback sentence, although these claimants haven't actually been convicted of anything.

And so in this climate, it is hardly surprising that some sections of the press have cheered in near orgasmic delight at the thought of more disabled people and single parents going to jail. As the director of public prosecutions put it: "It is a myth that 'getting one over on the system' is a victimless crime: the truth is we all pay the price."

But the problem is that the price isn't actually that high. The amount lost to fraud in the entire benefits system, which includes not just out-of-work benefits, but tax credits, child benefit, disability living allowance, housing benefits and pensions, is around £2bn a year. This represents just 1% of total social security spending. Retail theft was estimated in 2010 to cost around £4.4bn, yet no one is calling for 10-year prison sentences for shoplifters.

More money is lost due to error in the benefits system than is lost to fraud. Iain Duncan Smith may not like it, but the truth is that most claimants are honest. That's why Grant Shapps was able to make the claim that almost one million people had come off sickness and disability benefits rather than undergo the notorious work capability assessment carried out by Atos. As was pointed out by the UK Statistics Authority in a humiliating rebuke to this statement, the truth is that most of them came off sickness benefits because they got better.

And perhaps what is forgotten most of all is that benefit claimants are by definition poor, often desperately so. Some people are now being left with just a couple of pounds a day to survive. Hundreds of thousands are using food banks. That isn't a defence of benefit fraud, but people in desperate circumstances often turn to desperate means – often for the most human of reasons, such as putting food in their children's mouths.

There will be nothing gained by society from jailing more people who commit low level benefit fraud. The cost of prosecution and imprisonment will wipe out any financial savings. Filling up the already overcrowded prisons with disabled people caught playing golf, or single mums who didn't tell the jobcentre they had a boyfriend will help no one, least of all the taxpayer.

While those at the top of society avoid or evade taxes to the tune of £32bn a year – even by conservative estimates – it is a grim sign of the times that it is those with the very least who are coming under such relentless scrutiny. It increasingly seems it is far better in the eyes of some of the wealthy and powerful that it is the crimes of the poor that occupy the front pages of the newspapers.

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theguardian.com