Food Stamp Fraud Includes Benefits For Prisoners Bill Would Require States To Match Prison Rolls, Food Stamp Benefits

Millions of dollars in food stamps are awarded to Americans each year for family members who are in prison, a congressional study says.

A General Accounting Office report released Monday showed that about $3.5 million in food stamps were granted in 1995 for 12,138 people behind bars in Florida, New York and Texas and in Los Angeles County.

The findings suggest that tens of millions of dollars in stamps are distributed fraudulently across the nation each year, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., of the House Agriculture operations subcommittee told reporters.

Eligibility for food stamps is determined on a household basis. The stamps are used to buy food from authorized stores.

Federal law requires that a family receiving food stamps advise the distributing state or local agency when one of its members is sentenced to prison. The food stamp allotment then is lowered proportionately.

But if the incarceration is not reported, the family would continue receiving higher benefits for which it no longer is eligible.

“It truly is unfair … that those families who truly need government assistance for their nutrition could receive lesser amounts than those who break the law,” committee Chairman Bob Smith, R-Ore., told a news conference.

Goodlatte agreed, saying, “It pains us to think that some families are struggling to provide for their nutritional needs while across the street another household is living better because one of their members went to the slammer.”

Smith and Goodlatte said they and Rep. Charles Stenholm of Texas, the ranking committee Democrat, would introduce legislation Wednesday to require states to match prison inmate rolls with food stamp lists.

A year after passage, the bill would permit the Agriculture Department, which administers the program, to withhold a portion of a state’s administrative funds if it does not have a verification system.

Similar legislation has been introduced by Chairman Dick Lugar, R-Ind., of the Senate Agriculture Committee.