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.
I got my first degree in criminology and can assure you that science has known since the late 70’s that increased punishment and harsher prison environments causes more crime.
Criminals do not weigh things logically before deciding to do crime. It’s environmental and cultural.