Illinois denied cash welfare benefits from 1996 to 1999 to 10,298 women convicted of drug offenses in Cook County - Keeping Current - Brief Article

Chicago Reporter, The, April, 2002 by Ellyn Ong, Sarah Karp, Audra Martin

Illinois denied cash welfare benefits from 1996 to 1999 to 10,298 women convicted of drug offenses in Cook County, leaving them little way to provide for their children after being released from prison, according to a February report. The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that conducts criminal justice research, also found nearly 90 percent of the women are black.

The 1996 federal welfare reform law barred benefits to women convicted of felony drug offenses. The report asks Congress to drop the provision as it designs a new welfare reform law this year.