Employers, recruitment and offenders: underlining the limits of work-focused welfare?

The US and the UK are currently reforming welfare policy to emphasise work. It is in this context that UK policy makers have increasingly seen 'demand-led' programmes as a key component of welfare-to-work policies. This article draws upon the findings of research conducted for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which examined how employers respond to job applications from offenders, to discuss the challenges faced by policy makers engaged in welfare reform. A key finding is that the demand-led approach has inherent weaknesses which limit its ability to help offenders into work.