{"id":24708,"date":"2016-04-19T08:02:15","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T15:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/give-drug-felons-food-stamps-many-states-now-say\/"},"modified":"2016-04-19T08:02:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T15:02:15","slug":"give-drug-felons-food-stamps-many-states-now-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/give-drug-felons-food-stamps-many-states-now-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Give drug felons food stamps, many states now say"},"content":{"rendered":"

LINCOLN, Neb.<\/strong> \u2014 Nebraska is desperate to stop the runaway growth of its prison population, but doing so depends a lot on people like Ronald Tillman. Tillman, 54, a paroled drug dealer who suffers from bipolar disease and a debilitating back injury, has lived since his 2013 release solely on his monthly $733 disability check. When his food runs short, he faces a choice that has costly implications for the state\u2014 if he gets caught.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when you need food, you have to steal it,\u201d said Tillman, a Navy veteran. \u201cI\u2019ve shoplifted a couple of times, just to eat that night and maybe the next morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nebraska is among a dwindling number of states that still enforce a lifetime ban on drug offenders receiving food stamps. If Tillman had been convicted of robbery, burglary or another crime, he could be eligible for the federal assistance. Now, Nebraska is wrestling with whether it can still afford the restrictive policy even though many residents take a dim view of giving public benefits to drug felons.<\/p>\n

Eager to help more drug law convicts stay on the streets without committing crimes \u2014 those offenders can account for more than a quarter of those released \u2014 Alabama, Texas and a number of other states have decided in recent years to end or scale back the federal food stamp ban, which each state has the option to do.<\/p>\n

Georgia is expected to end its ban soon, leaving only eight states with a lifetime prohibition \u2014 Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia. A bill to lift Nebraska\u2019s ban was thwarted by a procedural move after receiving majority support this spring, but proponents hope to bring it back again next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get it. These people who have drug problems did a bad thing,\u201d said Nebraska state Sen. Tommy Garrett, a Republican. However, \u201cI\u2019m interested in reducing recidivism and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s warranted to deprive them of benefits that other convicted felons get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nebraska\u2019s governor, Republican Pete Ricketts, and about a dozen legislators disagree, saying the current law only targets drug sellers or those convicted of possession more than twice. Giving drug offenders food stamps only makes it easier for them to support their drug habit if they relapse, as at least half of drug addicts do.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy giving food stamps to drug dealers, we\u2019re just enabling them,\u201d said Sen. Bill Kintner, who took the lead in opposing the change.<\/p>\n

Nebraska\u2019s prison population increased about 50 percent from 1997 to 2014, in part because of tougher sentencing laws, and now totals roughly 5,300 inmates, about 165 percent of the system\u2019s designed capacity.<\/p>\n

Overcrowding was blamed as a factor in a prison riot that left two inmates dead last year.<\/p>\n

Corrections officials this year sought $26 million for prison improvements and expansions, but even that might not be enough. Ricketts has called for more counseling and other services to help released inmates stay out of prison, where each costs about $30,000 a year to house.<\/p>\n

About a third of Nebraska\u2019s ex-cons end up back behind bars, and nearly 28 percent of those released were primarily drug law violators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are more or less nonviolent crimes,\u201d said Nebraska state Sen. Les Seiler, the Republican chairman of a prisons oversight committee, who said the goal should be to \u201cget them a job, so they\u2019re not just sitting in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

A single person can receive up to $194 a month in food stamps; a parent with two children could get $511.<\/p>\n

Carol Gundlach, who has been working on food stamp issues for 20 years in Alabama, remembers when the federal ban was made part of President Bill Clinton\u2019s legislation to \u201cend welfare as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings were done then where we now all look back and say, \u2018Oh my gosh, what a bad idea,\u2019 \u201c said Gundlach, a policy analyst for an Alabama group that pushed for changing the state\u2019s food stamp policy.<\/p>\n

Alabama lifted its prohibition after its inmate population reached 30,000, about twice the prison system\u2019s intended capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had some people where, it was a tough bill to swallow,\u201d said Sen. Cam Ward, a Republican who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, \u201cFinances drive it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A special attraction is that the federal government pays the entire cost of food stamps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s free money, right?\u201d said Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project nonprofit group.<\/p>\n

In Nebraska last year, the state turned away 676 applicants with drug convictions, but many more likely didn\u2019t apply because they knew they would be rejected.<\/p>\n

Destenie Commuso, of Lincoln, who was arrested in 2006 on drug manufacturing and delivery charges, said food stamps helped her rebuild her life in the community after her release. She participated in a drug court program that let her avoid a felony conviction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe food stamps really gave me the opportunity to not have to worry about how I was going to eat\u201d during the six months it took to land a job, said Commuso, who now supports two children and no longer receives aid. \u201cIt took that burden off and let me focus on my recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

McFetridge reported from Des Moines, Iowa.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Scott McFetridge at: https:\/\/twitter.com\/smcfetridge .<\/p>\n

Follow Grant Schulte at: https:\/\/twitter.com\/GrantSchulte .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LINCOLN, Neb. \u2014 Nebraska is desperate to stop the runaway growth of its prison population, but doing so depends a lot on people like Ronald Tillman. Tillman, 54, a paroled drug dealer who suffers from bipolar disease and a debilitating back injury, has lived since his 2013 release solely on his monthly $733 disability check. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24708"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}