Here’s
his take on SSI disability: It started out as a noble program in the 1950s to
provide a living income to citizens who, because of physical or mental
disability, were incapable of providing for themselves. Qualification for
disability was strictly controlled and limited. The Social Security
Administration maintained an employment “grid” that included virtually every
known job in the country. If the disability applicant had the skills necessary
for any job on the grid, their application was denied. It didn’t matter if the
job was available. If you possessed the requisite skills, you weren’t disabled.
As
a young lawyer just starting in practice I remember agreeing to handle a
disability appeal pro bono. “Jane” was a thirty something white woman who
looked much older. Life had not dealt her a fair hand. Her left side was
partially paralyzed, the result of multiple minor strokes in her teens and
twenties. She spoke with a slow, slightly slurred speech pattern. She was close
to being classified as legally blind. She “heard” voices and twice each week
visited the health clinic for psychotropic meds to control her schizophrenia.
She lived with her elderly mother in subsidized housing.
I
took on Jane’s case after one of our firm secretaries told me her church had
been providing meals to her and her mother at regular intervals. When I met her
I was shocked. I was twenty-five years old and didn’t know people like Jane
existed (side note: I recalled my initial encounter with Jane when I found
myself in jail with the flotsam and jetsam that makes up most of the inmate
population).
She
showed me her disability denial. Based on the grid, the Social Security Administration
determined Jane could work assembling boxes. I read the denial and grew angry.
There were no box assembly jobs around East Tennessee. And Jane, well it was
obvious she couldn’t work. We appealed; I found a Psychiatrist willing to
testify about her mental condition; and Jane, began receiving disability.
Now,
almost eighty percent of those applying for disability get it. Lawyers – who
used to take one or two such cases on to remind themselves why they went to law
school, to bring “justice for all” – began warehousing thousands of disability
cases each year and earning millions in legal fees, all paid by the Federal
government. Disability became an income supplement after your unemployment ran
out.
Think
I exaggerate? Walk through any prison today and listen to the number of men
(and woman) who will seek to receive disability upon release. Meet “Screw
Loose” a diabetic college student. “I don’t need re-entry. When I walk out the
front door I’m goin’ right back home. I’ll sit on my fat ass and get my disability
check” (as an aside the disability check didn’t stop him from getting arrested
and sent back to prison two more times). The disability system, like so much
else going on in the country today, is in need of overhaul.
What
does this have to do with a prison blog? Well, one of the big “industries”
inside is helping guys understand what benefits are available once they return
to “the street.” And disability income is a biggie. Face it; employment
opportunities for convicted felons are limited. Add to that the high percentage
of those in prison with little to no education, poor work and credit histories,
and their likelihood of successfully re-entering society drops even more.
Disability becomes a no-brainer. So many of those behind bars are classified
with mental disorders and kept medicated that it becomes easier to say you are
disabled than to say you’re alright.
And
prison itself is schizophrenic. Everything in here is done for you, yet nothing
is done to help you, I mean really help you, put your life back together and be
an active participant in society. Prison is about the have nots. Most of the
men I’ve met along the way – save the overtly violent, sociopathic ones – are
men who candidly never had a chance to succeed. America isn’t much on Horatio
Alger’s stories of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. These men were born
to poor, uneducated, alcoholic or drug-addled mothers. Violence and neglect
were the norm in their life, not the exception. Does that excuse their crimes?
No. But, it does explain why so often they turn to disability claims as a way
of “getting what’s due me.”
It’s
a short-sighted approach and one that’s destined for failure. But then again,
so is this country’s current reliance on prison as means of dealing with those
struggling on the outside to be let in. Most of the incarcerated don’t look
like me. They didn’t have the opportunities I had. Maybe that justifies me
getting sent here. After all, I threw away a pretty good deal.
That’s
not how it is with the vast majority of men I’ve met. They’re on the outside
looking in. Sadly, so were their families. That doesn’t justify what any of
them have done. Nor is it an excuse. But, perhaps, just perhaps we can pause
and realize things aren’t fair for everyone. The preamble of the United States
Constitution begins with these transcending words:
“We
the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to
provide for the common welfare …”
That
is a goal that should drive this country forward. Senator Coburn is right. SSI
disability is a mess. But so is our neglect of those hanging on by a thread on
the fringe of the American dream. Prisons aren’t the answer; neither is a
rigged system that leads folks to “get what’s due” them.
