Abstract I estimate the effect of access to food stamps on criminal recidivism. In 1996, a federal welfare reform imposed a lifetime ban from food stamps on convicted drug felons. Florida modified this ban, restricting it to drug traffickers who commit their offense on or after August 23, 1996. I exploit this sharp cutoff in a regression discontinuity design and find that the ban increases recidivism among drug traffickers. The increase is driven by financially motivated crimes, suggesting that the cut in benefits causes ex-convicts to return to crime to make up for the lost transfer income.
Citation Tuttle, Cody. 2019. "Snapping Back: Food Stamp Bans and Criminal Recidivism." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , 11 (2): 301-27 . DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170490 Choose Format: BibTeX EndNote Refer/BibIX RIS Tab-Delimited
gizram84 on May 3rd, 2019 at 14:12 UTC »
"If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel."
-Milton Friedman
The bottom line is that the "war on drugs" is a complete failure in every aspect. Society is worse off. The drug users are worse off. Non-drug users are worse off. The government is worse off (by frivolously spending money propping this all up) and the drug cartels are worth billions. Literally everyone is worse off except for the cartels.
Mortlach78 on May 3rd, 2019 at 13:27 UTC »
Punishing people for their past crimes after they served their time is so odd. What was locking them up supposed to mean then? No food stamps, getting work is extremely difficult, no voting, no wonder recidivism is so high.
Nuppusaurus on May 3rd, 2019 at 12:27 UTC »
How did anyone even think this would be a good idea??