The Violence of Austerity

Edited by Vickie Cooper, David Whyte

Publication date:

20 May 2017

Length of book:

256 pages

Publisher

Pluto Press

ISBN-13: 9781786800626

Austerity, a response to the aftermath of the financial crisis, continues to devastate contemporary Britain.

In The Violence of Austerity, Vickie Cooper and David Whyte bring together the voices of campaigners and academics including Danny Dorling, Mary O'Hara and Rizwaan Sabir to show that rather than stimulating economic growth, austerity policies have led to a dismantling of the social systems that operated as a buffer against economic hardship, exposing austerity to be a form of systematic violence.

Covering a range of famous cases of institutional violence in Britain, the book argues that police attacks on the homeless, violent evictions in the rented sector, the risks faced by people on workfare schemes, community violence in Northern Ireland and cuts to the regulation of social protection, are all being driven by reductions in public sector funding. The result is a shocking expose of the myriad ways in which austerity policies harm people in Britain.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Violence of Austerity - Vickie Cooper and David Whyte
Part I: Deadly Welfare
1. Mental Health and Suicide - Mary O’Hara
2. Austerity and Mortality - Danny Dorling
3. Welfare Reforms and the Attack on Disabled People - John Pring
4. The Violence of Workfare - Jon Burnett and David Whyte
5. The Multiple Forms of Violence in the Asylum System - Victoria Canning
6. The Degradation and Humiliation of Young People - Emma Bond and Simon Hallsworth
Part II: Poverty Amplification
7. Child Maltreatment and Child Mortality - Joanna Mack
8. Hunger and Food Poverty - Rebecca O’Connell and Laura Hamilton
9. The Deadly Impact of Fuel Poverty - Ruth London
10. The Violence of the Debtfare State - David Ellis
11. Women of Colour’s Anti-Austerity Activism - Akwugo Emejulu and Leah Bassel
12. Dismantling the Irish Peace Process - Daniel Holder
Part III: State Regulation
13. Undoing Social Protection - Steve Tombs
14. Health and Safety at the Frontline of Austerity - Hilda Palmer and David Whyte
15. Environmental Degradation - Charlotte Burns and Paul Tobin
16. Fracking and State Violence - Will Jackson, Helen Monk and Joanna Gilmore
17. Domicide, Eviction and Repossession - Kirsteen Paton and Vickie Cooper
18. Austerity’s Impact on Rough Sleeping and Violence - Daniel McCulloch
Part IV: State Control
19. Legalising the Violence of Austerity - Robert Knox
20. The Failure to Protect Women in the Criminal Justice System - Maureen Mansfield and Vickie Cooper
21. Austerity, Violence and Prisons - Joe Sim
22. Evicting Manchester’s Street Homeless - Steven Speed
23. Policing Anti-Austerity through the ‘War on Terror’ - Rizwaan Sabir
24. Austerity and the Production of Hate - Jon Burnett
Notes on Contributors
Index

'An analytical masterpiece, describing what has happened to our communities as a result of austerity'