![]() The amount of benefits varies based on factors such as household size, income and expenses. Upon exiting the system, low-income people must reapply for CalFresh, California’s largest federally funded government nutrition program, which is administered by the California Department of Social Services.ĬalFresh benefits are provided in the form of an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card, which works like a debit card and can be used to buy food at participating grocery stores, farmers markets, and other retailers. Current law requires that food stamp benefits automatically stop when someone goes to jail or prison. ![]() In November, a coalition of California nonprofit organizations launched The Thriving Transitions campaign, which seeks to raise awareness about the effects of food insecurity on women exiting the penal system. That same report found that formerly incarcerated women, especially African American women and Latinas, have much higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than formerly incarcerated men, and are even less likely than incarcerated men to have had a high school education. Food insecurity can extend to family members of formerly incarcerated women and can spiral into other problems that increase the risk of recidivism.Īccording to a July 2019 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit organization that produces research to expose the harms of mass criminalization, an annual average of 189,000 women are released from California jails and prisons. But that’s just the tip of an iceberg, experts say. Mirabal is one of thousands of women who face food insecurity each year upon their release from the California prison system. Without such necessary help as food, it is difficult for a woman like me to successfully reenter society.” “We would like people to be able to put themselves in our shoes. “Leaving the prison system was like entering another world that wasn’t real, but the basic needs like food were real,” said Mirabal, a San José native who was sentenced for taking part in a robbery that resulted in a murder she said she did not commit. But Mirabal’s biggest concern was how to apply for government food stamps while she searched for employment and a stable place to live after her release from the Central California Women’s Facility, northwest of Fresno, about 250 miles from Los Angeles.
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