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Webinar
The Impact of the Federal Drug Ban on Welfare Benefits
This webinar reviewed research on welfare reform legislation and discussed strategies for challenging policies that exclude people with felony drug convictions from receiving welfare assistance.
Related to: Collateral Consequences, Drug Policy, Federal Advocacy
The Sentencing Project’s report, A Lifetime of Punishment: The Impact of the Federal Drug Ban on Welfare Benefits, found that a provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation passed by Congress subjects an estimated 180,000 women in the 12 most impacted states to a lifetime ban on welfare benefits. This webinar reviewed this research and discussed strategies and tactics for challenging such policies at the federal and state level.
The presenters were Marc Mauer, an author of the report and Executive Director of The Sentencing Project, and Dr. Emily Wang, at the Yale School of Medicine.