The Government Makes It Harder for the Formerly Incarcerated to Be Good Citizens
The Government Makes It Harder for the Formerly Incarcerated to Be Good Citizens
If rehabilitation is the point of our justice system, government agencies shouldn’t punish people who’ve paid their debt, and who are trying to do the right thing.
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.
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Never had a parking ticket spiral eh?
$85 + $50 dollar waiver fee if you pay and just say you're guilty. OOOOR
$85 fee if you go to court and lose.
Only $95 in the bank.
Well shit, $50 bucks lets you pay rent, so you take the time. But you have to get exacty $10 of gas, you get to the courtroom, do your best and lose. You gotta pay $85 dollars, and so you do -- except the bank fucked you when you went to got gas, they haven't processes that yet, and the courtroom requires a mandatory $2.95 "convenience fee" so they don't have to take a check... So you pay, and the bank processes your payments dutifully, smallest to largest, but now you're in the hole for $105.
Rent is still coming next week, and you're lucky it's only $300 cause you share a 3 bedroom and sleep on the couch.
To make the $300 dollars you gotta work 2 jobs, because Wallmart makes sure you don't get the full 35 hours each week to qualify for benefits, and McDonalds only calls you to pick up the teenagers shifts on Fridays.
But wait, you're -105 in the bank, so you gotta go call up a bunch of people you know and bug everyone at McDonalds to see if you can cover their shifts. Finally you manage to scrape together 55 hours to pay your rent... but you get dinged on your mobile bill in the middle of that week, and you're out another 40 dollars. You can't cancel the mobile phone since it's your only phone, and hell entertainment, you can't afford a TV or a Netflix plan, that shit's for the rich. You can't even afford to eat where you work...
Finally you get home, after working 7 days of 8 hour shifts you managed to scrape together (4 at wallymart and 3 at mcdonalds) and your bank account is empty, you don't have any money for food, and your snap benefits keep getting denied because you live in a red state...
So you watch youtube shorts, and tiktok doom scroll and try and forget you're hungry....
(I hope my landlord will let me give them 260 until I can cover the rest...)
Waaaaa. Maybe you should work another job instead of sitting on youtube doom scrolling. Or get a better paying job, or read on your own to learn skills, or go to the military. There are tons of options, you are just lazy. If you are only working 8 hours a day when you are starting off, that's your problem right there.
It's not often that I say this, but you sir, are a genuine piece of shit.
And you and all your little friends here are weak. Just want to complain. I'm a fucking Democrat and I find all your bitching to be nauseating. Just a generation of confused fucking babies. I'm a piece of shit of served my country and fought long and hard for every inch of success I've been given amidst being poor, physically and sexually abused, being a former drug and alcohol addict, having ptsd and generalized anxiety disorder due to those circumstances and having my 3 best buds growing up come home from war to all die from lack of mental health help here in the states even tho we were all "heroes". Fuck you you miniscule piece of shit, you don't know what HARD is.
Waaahhhhhhhhh
He expects empathy without having any to offer. It’s bizarre.
You could start off with a normal day tomorrow, and someone completely unrelated to you could crash in to you and leave you permanently disabled.
You could have a stroke and lose most of your cognitive abilities.
You can't be that happy with your current set up if you're "waaaaa"-ing random people on lemmy. Tell me, what part of that behaviour says "happy and fulfilled person"?
Why would anyone take life advice from an outwardly unhappy person?