Drug related crime and food stamps

In 1996, the Federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act amended the welfare system to prohibit anyone with a drug-related felony conviction from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, more commonly known as food stamps, for the rest of their lives.

This short-sighted and unjust measure makes no exceptions or provisions for demonstrated good behavior, successful completion of a rehabilitation program, or needs of minor dependents. So far, 39 states have passed legislation to amend or remove these restrictions.

Indiana is not one of them.

If America wants to get serious about making significant strides against our societal ills of hunger, hyper-incarceration and recidivism, we must look at the structural faults in our own backyards that are prohibiting progress.

When released inmates attempt to reenter society and provide for their family, they already face huge barriers to assimilation into the workforce due to their record and social stigma.

In this crucial period of transition, unemployment compounded with food insecurity fosters desperation and increases the likelihood of resorting to crime, prostitution or other risky behaviors to obtain food, which encourages recidivism.
Far from solely punishing offenders, the exclusion from food stamps also has detrimental effects on their children.

With the current arithmetic, the ex-offender is simply not counted when determining his or her family’s eligibility. It is unrealistic to believe that the parent will just go hungry, and thus the already small rations are spread thinner.

Many parents will wait to eat, eating only after their children have.
Older children soon learn what their parent is doing, and these children will eat less to leave food for them.

In some cases of single-parent households, the income may be low enough to qualify two people for food stamps, but since the parent is not counted, the income exceeds the barrier for a one-person household, excluding the family from federal food assistance entirely.

In this reality, the children will not receive the nutrition they deserve and require. It’s time to rethink and remove this legislation that unfairly targets innocent youths for their parents’ pasts.

The equity of targeting drug offenders also has an alarming racial component.
Although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers in America are white, three-fourths of people imprisoned for drug offenses have been black or Latino.
Due to this Act, minority populations are systematically barred from receiving federal benefits. This disconnect between the reality of drug-using populations in this country and those being penalized for it commands us to reevaluate our judicial failings and not reinforce them by withholding food from the needy.

Rather than recognizing the issue at hand and undergoing preventative and systemic change, Washington and Indianapolis have continued along the path of the 1996 Act.

The 2013 Federal Farm Bill cut funding to food stamps in half, making it more difficult to gain traction for allowing rehabilitated ex-felons to be included in the funding.

And though a bill to amend the ban and make eligibility contingent on five years of good behavior and completion of a rehabilitation program was introduced by Sen. John Broden, D-10th District, it was refused a hearing by Sen. Brent Steele, R-44th District, the Chair of the Committee on Corrections, Criminal and Civil Matters.

Regardless, this issue must be brought to the public consciousness.

We are asking readers to educate themselves and those around them on this issue, making their voices heard by Indiana state senators and those in positions of power.

Call and email your government and demand justice for those who have been convicted of drug-related crimes. Voice your support of the bill to amend the federal regulations on SNAP benefits.

This bill and the individuals for whom it is a crucial lifeline deserve a second chance.


­— Brooke Justus, Anna Kottkamp, Yuko Gruber, Kaitlyn Kennedy, Kelly Smith, Colleen McLinden and Amber Lalla are students studying advocacy for the common good at the University of Notre Dame. They represent a diverse array of class years and majors but are united in their passion for food justice.