NCJ Number
212540
Date Published
September 2005
Length
93 pages
Annotation
This study provides data on drug offenders who were denied certain Federal benefits available for other citizens and the factors involved in determining their eligibility for these benefits.
Abstract
Federal law allows for or requires certain Federal benefits to be denied to individuals convicted of drug offenses in Federal or State courts. These benefits include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, federally assisted housing, postsecondary education assistance, and some Federal contracts and licenses. During academic year 2003-2004, approximately 41,000 applicants (0.3 percent of all applicants) were disqualified from receiving postsecondary education loans and grants because of drug convictions. In 2003, 13 percent of the largest public housing agencies in the Nation reported that less than 6 percent of 9,249 lease terminations were due to drug-related criminal activities, and approximately 5 percent of the 29,459 applications for admission were denied for these reasons. From 1990 through the second quarter of 2004, judges in Federal and State courts were reported to have imposed sanctions to deny benefits such as Federal licenses, grants, and contracts to about 600 convicted drug offenders per year. Federal law mandates that convicted drug felons face a lifetime ban on receipt of TANF and food stamps unless States pass laws to exempt some or all convicted drug felons in their State from the ban. At the time of this study, 32 States exempted some or all convicted drug felons from the ban on TANF, and 35 states had modified the Federal ban on food stamps for such offenders. In 14 of the 18 States that fully implemented the ban on TANF for drug offenders in 2001, 15 percent of drug offenders met key eligibility requirements that would have made them eligible for benefits without the ban. For 12 of the 15 States that fully implemented the Federal ban on food stamps in 2001, approximately 23 percent of drug offenders met requirements for eligibility apart from the ban. 20 tables and 6 appendixes with supplementary information