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.

  • @Maggoty
    10•1 year ago

    Possessing a gun while being addicted.

    Note, it’s not while being high. It’s while being an addict. It is a felony to pick up a gun if you’ve ever attended an AA meeting.

    It is a felony to possess a gun with the wrong cosmetic feature in several states.

    It is a felony to pee in public. A sex registry offense to boot.

    Do you want I should go on? I could talk about actual cases of misused charges like resisting arrest. (With no other charges, so why were they being arrested?)

    And then there’s the ridiculous ease with which felony convictions are had. Just hold someone long enough to threaten their job and rented house and they’ll plead to anything to not be homeless after they get out of pre-trial detention.