Altimont owns Carmen’s Corner Store in Hagerstown, Maryland, a community where around 20 percent of people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy their groceries. But a federal agency decided that Altimont can never accept SNAP as a form of payment at Carmen’s.
That decision isn’t because Altimont has done anything wrong as a business owner, but rather because of unrelated crimes from 2004, for which he’s already served his time.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) permanently bans anyone with drug, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms convictions from participating in the SNAP program—a harsher punishment than the agency dishes out to those who have actually defrauded the program. That’s not just irrational, it’s also unconstitutional, which is why Altimont teamed up with our organization, the Institute for Justice (IJ), to file a federal lawsuit against the agency on Tuesday.
It’s silly because it doesn’t matter how bad the punishment is if every criminal from petty to professional thinks “I’ll never get caught”. They aren’t even considering a possibility of failure, and thus the consequences will never be a deterrent to their actions.
Once they get to prison, no amount of human rights abuses is going to magically make them into upstanding citizens. But somehow people think that if prison is a bad place nobody would want to go back. While that’s true, it’s a naive point of view from people who have never stopped to think about how someone freshly released from jail earns money or pays rent or buys necessities.
If, as a society, we truly care about reducing crime and not just punishing criminals out of a sense of twisted vengeance, we should be prioritizing rehabilitation and reform, rather than letting prisoners who could otherwise be saved languish in a system that seems to be okay with criminal gangs having total control of the social hierarchy on the inside.
They definitely consider failing. They just don’t care because crime is the most realistic option with those facing poverty or addiction. Sure DUI, and shoplifters probably think they won’t get caught but I guarantee you’ll find the best paralegals on the planet in the most dangerous cities in the US.