Benefits Street

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Benefits Street is a British documentary series broadcast on Channel 4. It followed the lives of benefit claimants and showed them committing crimes, including a demonstration of how to shoplift, and portrayed a situation in which people are dependent on benefits and voluntarily refuse to seek employment. The first season began airing on 6 January 2014 and ran for five episodes, during which it documented the lives of several people living on James Turner Street in the Winson Green area of Birmingham, where the media reports that 90% of residents claim benefits. The second series began airing on 11 May 2015 and ran for four episodes, with this season focusing on the residents of Kingston Road in Stockton-on-Tees. The show was highly controversial; Channel 4, the police, and the media regulator Ofcom received hundreds of complaints, and there were death threats made against the residents of the street on Twitter. Channel 4 was accused of making poverty porn, and many of those taking part...

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