The
government shouldn’t deny food stamps on the basis of a criminal record.
There’s one group of people in this country who probably get
less sympathy than anyone else: felons.
If you’re a convicted felon, very few Americans care about your
plight. Can’t find a job or an apartment because of your record? Too bad, we
tell them, you shouldn’t have committed a crime.
In addition to being denied jobs or housing, convicted felons
lose some or all of
their voting rights in every state except Maine and Vermont.
Twelve states continue to deny felons voting rights even after they’ve served
prison sentences and completed parole.
In some states, like Arizona, Florida, and Texas, the ban is
across the board. Elsewhere, including in Colorado, New Jersey, and Wisconsin,
drug felons can regain this right if they complete alcohol or drug treatment.
This boggles my mind.
If somebody’s struggling so much that they resort to crime, should we really punish them by denying them food? They’re still human beings, no matter what they’ve done in their lives.
Maybe they’re dealing with an addiction or a mental health
issue. As of 2009, about a third of felony arrests were for drug crimes.
Maybe they’re trying to function in society as upstanding
citizens after their incarceration. Maybe they’re struggling to do so.
For former felons trying to lead an honest life — but poor
enough to qualify for food stamps — wouldn’t food assistance make it that much
easier to get by without breaking the law again?
Wouldn’t relieving them of the stress of affording food allow
them to focus on other things — like staying away from drugs, or working
through the problems that led them to commit a crime in the first place?
Food stamps aren’t a magic fix. You have to be desperately poor
to qualify, and even then, Uncle Sam isn’t exactly a generous benefactor. But
they help. They take away stress and meet a need for people that don’t live
easy lives.
Society should do all it can to rehabilitate felons, rather than
punishing them for the rest of their lives. No criminal record negates their
right as human beings to eat.
OtherWords
columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our
Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.