Lifetime ban on foodstamps for certain convictions - agree?

[Theodon]

I was reading the news this morning and noticed that the Senate Farm Bill over in America was modified to add a lifetime ban on foodstamps for people convicted of serious sex offenses and murders. This lifetime ban also applies to people who've commited drug offenses. This was introduced in 1996, so it's far from new. Here is a Yale paper on that ban for drug offenses in particular. Only 10 states now operate under this bill, however.

As some Americans may know, the foodstamp ban was to prevent them from being traded for drugs in place of money. Food stamp benefits are now distributed electronically and accessed with a debit card that makes selling or trading benefits more difficult. Source

So to the discussion: Do you agree with the lifetime ban on foodstamps for both serious crimes like murder and sex offenses, but also crimes like drug offenses? If you agree, what is your reasoning behind the ban? Do you think a lifetime ban is a negative change, regardless of the crime committed, or do you think only certain crimes should carry this punishment?

[Deleted]

Since everyone's criminal record in America is publicly know (As far as I know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), you might aswell starve them in prison. How are they supposed to get food if they can't find a job? Answer: criminality, this bill will not reduce crime, it will increase it and thus it is counterproductive and therefor worthless and stupid.

[Cracked]

Since everyone's criminal record in America is publicly know (As far as I know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), you might aswell starve them in prison. How are they supposed to get food if they can't find a job? Answer: criminality, this bill will not reduce crime, it will increase it and thus it is counterproductive and therefor worthless and stupid.

I agree. This will not reduce criminality in any way. If you want a good answer (read not best but crime reducing) to drug problems, legalize them all. The solution proposed seems to me like taking away drivers' licenses for not paying child support, which, again, some states do, but I fail to see the relevance.

[Raidboss]

I don't want anyone thats been convicted of a felony living off my tax dollars. It's bad enough that they get 3 hot meals a day, a roof over their head, and a bed to sleep in while they are in prison on my dime. Lesser drug convicts and stuff like shop lifting no I don't think so.

[Theodon]

Since everyone's criminal record in America is publicly know (As far as I know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), you might aswell starve them in prison. How are they supposed to get food if they can't find a job? Answer: criminality, this bill will not reduce crime, it will increase it and thus it is counterproductive and therefor worthless and stupid.

That is one of the stronger argument against this bill. If you are convicted of a criminal offense then it's extremly hard to get a well paid job, due to the lack of a wage system that ensures people get enough to live by, which means people will rely on foodstamps for a good while during the time they 'earn' their way back in to society. Banning foodstamps for criminal offenses only leaves convicted criminals one avenue to eat, which is going back to crime, so getting a badly paid job is no good to them.

Others are arguing that a violent criminal will always be a violent criminal, and it's a waste of money to provide them with food as they won't rehabilitate. I've not seen much reasoning from this side of the argument however and I'm hoping more will come from this thread, just to better understand both sides of the argument more than anything.

[Deleted]

I don't get it. You commit a crime and you go to jail to pay your debt to society.

Except in the american law, when you get out of jail...it seems you continue to pay your debt, for certain crimes.

[Raidboss]

I don't get it. You commit a crime and you go to jail to pay your debt to society.

Except in the american law, when you get out of jail...it seems you continue to pay your debt, for certain crimes.

Because you should be able to eat for free in America?? No, you should pay your debt to society and then get a job like normal tax payers.

[Deleted]

I don't want anyone thats been convicted of a felony living off my tax dollars. It's bad enough that they get 3 hot meals a day, a roof over their head, and a bed to sleep in while they are in prison on my dime. Lesser drug convicts and stuff like shop lifting no I don't think so.

Yes, I propose mass executions for petty crimes, so society doesn't have to pay the bills for housing the criminals.

Could be a great Twilight Zone episode.

[drwelfare]

I do not care for the foodstamp program and think the entire program needs to be scrapped and rebuilt.
But I can see that someone who just got out of prison after a long sentence would have more need of temporary assistance, than someone who was 19 and decided to already have 2 kids with different deadbeat guys. Someone who is 19 with no record can find more work and be more accustomed to society than someone after a 15-20 year sentence.

I talked with someone who got out of prison after 14.5 years, he had to learn to drive again, he had never used a cell phone only seen them, you take someone who's last view of the outside world was in 1990 and spent a good period of their adult life in an institutional system it is going to take them time to get back into normal society. Finding work is another problem its hard finding a job in lots of places, its harder when your 50 have no work experience (except prison industries possibly) and a criminal record. A employee at the DOC transition center told me they try and get lots of their people things like working in restaurant kitchens.

[slime]

Agree completely with this plan. Disagree with all of the slippery slopes posted so far on this thread. Criminal doesn't care about societies laws.. breaks them - gets caught and then wants the society he/she just spit on to bail them out and help them? No thank you. I don't care if they starve to death - unless they are physically handicapped they can still get a minimum wage hard labor job as a convict and make just enough to survive. No one cares if it's a hard life - there are plenty of non-criminals working it already. Why in the fuck should you be paid to live on your sofa, doing nothing (but more drugs probably) and after commiting a serious crime? You people are mad if you are seriously defending this behavior and think that it will fix more than simply cutting them off. Giving them welfare fixes nothing and if anything promotes the idea that if they did find work they'd lose their free monies each month. I have enough of a hard time swallowing this method of help with non-criminals... but for criminals ~ you have basically made your choice, now you live with it. Or is responsibility for your actions an extinct concept?

[wilbbailey]

Ex-cons should be deported so they can find good jobs and food stamps in other nations. That would get naysayers off their soapbox and improve our quality of life.

[Deleted]

Because you should be able to eat for free in America?? No, you should pay your debt to society and then get a job like normal tax payers.

America produces enough food to feed the world, most of it gets trown away or gets eaten by people who've had more then enough.
Lord knows America could do with half of what they produce and still manage to be the country with the most obese people in the world xD

[Raidboss]

Yes, I propose mass executions for petty crimes, so society doesn't have to pay the bills for housing the criminals.

Could be a great Twilight Zone episode.

It's jail...it's punishment. I feel every prison should be like this: http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/27/tough.sheriff/

[Netherspark]

Isn't there something in america that states that people cannot be futher punished for the same crime more than once, or after release from prison?

It would only make sense if they had been involved in some kind of abuse or fraud of the foodstamp system itself.

[Theodon]

Because you should be able to eat for free in America?? No, you should pay your debt to society and then get a job like normal tax payers.

Paying your debt implies that there is an end to the debt. The lifetime ban on foodstamps also has a negative impact on the family of the convicted as they will have a reduction in their SNAP benefits. There is also the issue, that is a whole other problem, where the jobs available to anyone with a conviction are likely to be paying below what it needed to survive. The setup prevents them from ever paying their debt, and that unpayable debt also being inherited by their family in a small way.

[wilbbailey]

That's what I love about mmo-c message boards, everyone hates on America but no one wants to get into a scrap with them.

Infracted. Post constructively, please.

[Deleted]

Because you should be able to eat for free in America?? No, you should pay your debt to society and then get a job like normal tax payers.

That's not what I meant. When you get out of jail, certain crimes seem to have their punishment prolonged into the free life. Sex offenders, for example, are required by law to let their neighbours know they're sex offenders (imo, this comes against the constitutional right to privacy and dignity but if society has agreed to this, then law and morality be damned). And seems soon more crimes will also have strings attached to them after the jail time.

[Raidboss]

America produces enough food to feed the world, most of it gets trown away or gets eaten by people who've had more then enough.
Lord knows America could do with half of what they produce and still manage to be the country with the most obese people in the world xD

If you got the money to pay for the food to make you obese then by all means feel free to be as big as you please. If your a dirt bag living off welfare because your to lazy to get a job and pay your own bills you should be dumpster diving.

[slime]

Please type in "Starving people riots" into google, and see what you get. Rather a lot, yeh? Think that makes your argument look a bit silly if you claim "cutting them off will fix their behaviour".

But paying them to NOT find work, continue to be criminals is a better option. :/

Also - I said nothing of cutting off the poor, I said criminals. If you are poor in result to your criminal actions - tough shit for you, I got good honest people who cant afford food - I will gladly help first.

If anything - cutting them off might not fix their behavior, but they will be forced to evaluate it at least and see what led them to this point. Paying them is like telling them, they did okay and commiting crime is rewarded with welfare - they will never see that they did wrong.

[Deleted]

Ex-cons should be deported so they can find good jobs and food stamps in other nations. That would get naysayers off their soapbox and improve our quality of life.

Good idea. One problem though: which country in the world would agree to house other countries' criminals ? I think the last time a country did that, the nation of Australia came to be. Got any idea for an empty continent ?