The Food Stamp Program is designed to promote the general welfare and to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s population by raising the nutrition levels of low-income families. Recipients use their food stamp benefits to purchase allowable food products from authorized retail food merchants. Eligibility for food stamp benefits is determined on a household basis. A household can be either an individual or a family or other group that lives together and customarily purchases and prepares food in common. The value of food stamp benefits for a household is determined by the number of eligible household members and their income, adjusted for assets and such costs as shelter and utilities. The household’s monthly food stamp allotment increases with each additional member, provided income limits are not exceeded. Household members who are incarcerated and fed by a correctional facility are not eligible for food stamp benefits and are not to be included in the household for purposes of calculating the food stamp benefit. Households that receive food stamps are required to report changes in household membership, such as a member’s incarceration, to the administering state or local agency. Within USDA, the Food and Consumer Service (FCS) administers the Food Stamp Program through agreements with state agencies. FCS is responsible for approving state plans for operation and ensuring that the states are administering the program in accordance with regulations. States are required to establish a performance reporting system to monitor the program, including a quality control review process to help ensure that benefits are issued only to qualifying households and that the benefit amounts are correct. State agencies are responsible for imposing penalties for violations of program requirements and for recovering food stamp overpayments. The program is administered at the local level by either a state agency or a local welfare agency, depending on the state. In California, county agencies operate the program at the local level, while in New York State, districts operate the program. The state agency supervises operations in both states. In Florida and Texas, state agencies operate the program through district and regional offices, respectively. Whatever the administering authority, local service centers work directly with clients to certify household eligibility and determine benefit amounts at the time of application and at least annually thereafter. To identify prisoner participation, we performed a computer match comparing 1995 food stamp rolls with inmate rolls. To ensure that our analyses resulted in valid matches, we (1) verified the prisoners’ social security numbers through the Social Security Administration’s verification system, (2) used only those matches showing dates of incarceration that coincided with the dates that food stamp benefits were issued to the household, and (3) used only those matches showing that the prisoner had been incarcerated for at least a full month and that sufficient time had elapsed for the household to notify the state of the change and for the state to take action. The food stamp rolls covered three large states (Florida, New York, and Texas) and one large county (Los Angeles, California). (See app. I.) The inmate rolls covered the state prison population in the four states and the jail population in large metropolitan areas of each state, that is, Los Angeles County, California; Dade County, Florida; New York City, New York; and Harris County, Texas. Our detailed methodology is discussed in appendix II. During calendar year 1995, about $3.5 million in food stamp benefits were issued on behalf of state prison and county jail inmates claimed as household members in the locations we examined. (See table 1.) Of this total, nearly 9,500 state prison inmates included as household members accounted for an estimated $2.6 million in benefits. About 2,700 county jail inmates accounted for over $900,000 in benefits. The inmate participants that we identified in our match were members of households of varying sizes, some with multiple members and some with a single member—the prisoner was the household. For households with multiple members, the household continued to receive its monthly benefits, which were calculated on the presumption that the prisoner was present in the home. For single-member households, someone other than the prisoner was issued the benefits. The stamps could have been issued either to a person designated as the prisoner’s authorized representativeor to someone who fraudulently represented himself or herself as the prisoner to receive the benefits. Food stamp benefits are issued either as coupons or via electronic benefit transfer systems. For coupons, issuance procedures require that the client presents various items of identification, such as Food Stamp Program cards bearing the client’s signatures, in order to pick up food stamps from a service center or other outlet. A small number of clients receive their coupons through the mail. Under electronic benefit transfer systems, the state agency issues access cards (similar to credit cards) and personal identification numbers to clients who obtain benefits through point-of-sale terminals in stores. However, the effectiveness of the issuance procedures to ensure that only eligible participants receive benefits depends on how rigorously the procedures are implemented by the responsible staff. Prisoners are able to participate in the Food Stamp Program because local welfare agencies seldom verify the composition of a household. Instead, most agencies rely on food stamp applicants to provide accurate household information and to report subsequent changes, such as the incarceration of a household member. Most agencies do not, for example, routinely compare lists of prison or jail inmates with lists of household members. In general, the Food Stamp Program has to balance the issues of client convenience, administrative simplicity, and payment accuracy; consequently, controls over such eligibility factors as household composition are not rigorous. A household that wishes to receive benefits must present an application listing members and provide information about their income and other eligibility factors. Caseworkers review this information, interview a household representative, and certify eligibility.In addition, they recertify the household at least annually. However, at no time are all household members required to appear and present identification. Furthermore, clients are responsible for identifying changes in household composition. According to FCS’ 1995 quality control review, which identified error rates for each state by reviewing a random sample of cases, client errors or misrepresentations contributed significantly to incorrect benefits, particularly when an overpayment occurred. FCS reported that overpayments occurred in about 15 percent of the cases reviewed nationwide and that 62 percent of the dollar value of overpayments was attributable to inaccuracies in client-provided information. Nevertheless, FCS’ regulations do not require verification of client-provided information on household composition, unless the caseworker deems the information “questionable.” The regulations allow each state agency to develop guidance for identifying questionable information. In the states we visited, the guidance defined questionable information as applicants’ statements that were contradictory or did not agree with information that was in the case record or otherwise available to the caseworker. When the caseworkers in the states we visited suspected fraudulent information, they could refer the application to investigators before granting aid. Investigators in each state told us that they attempted to verify questionable information on household composition by visiting homes and making collateral contacts to confirm information with friends, neighbors, or landlords. According to the investigators, these techniques were hit-or-miss, time-consuming, and costly undertakings, and provided information that was only as reliable as its source. Furthermore, investigative resources were generally very limited; for example, the Miami area, which contains about 26 percent of Florida’s food stamp recipients, had just one field investigator to conduct household visits. Some agencies have employed computer matching as a means of identifying ineligible recipients, such as prisoners, but the practice does not appear to be widespread. According to FCS, four states (Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, and New York) currently perform a monthly computer match between state prisons’ inmate records and food stamp rolls; two states were in the process of developing such a match; and one state performed an annual match. FCS’ regional offices identified only one local agency that compared food stamp recipients with county jail inmates. However, our discussions with officials in the states we visited indicated that the actual number of local agencies conducting such matches was larger. For example, in California, the state agency reported that 14 of the state’s 58 county agencies collected and reviewed data on local jails’ inmates at least once a week. Of the states we visited, Florida and New York operated matching programs, Texas was in the process of establishing a program, and California had plans to implement a program at some future date. While Florida and New York conduct routine matching programs, we identified prisoner participation in the Food Stamp Program in these states because (1) our matches covered a time period not covered by the states’ matches and (2) we used prisoners’ social security numbers, which were verified by the Social Security Administration, a step the states had not taken. Although computer matching of inmate data is not used often, our test in four states demonstrates that it can be a useful technique for identifying households that improperly include prisoners as members. A study by an FCS contractor of other computerized information verification processes in place at state agencies demonstrated that such matches are cost-effective, particularly when properly targeted. Ongoing and developing state matching programs could benefit from use of targeted matching and from sharing experiences. Officials in the four states we visited viewed the matching of prisoner data with food stamp data as a fairly straightforward, effective process. These officials said that they did not encounter or foresee any privacy issues that precluded such matching. Furthermore, while they were unable to provide detailed cost or savings information regarding their prison match programs, the two states we visited that had implemented such programs believed that they were beneficial. New York State did not track implementation costs but calculated savings in the Food Stamp Program of over $900,000 from August 1995 to April 1996. Because Florida was legislatively mandated to implement computer prison matches, the cost of implementation was not a major concern and therefore was not tracked. Florida has yet to calculate savings in the Food Stamp Program. Although detailed data supporting the cost-effectiveness of a computer prison match is not available from the states we visited, strong evidence exists that such a match, particularly when properly targeted, is cost-effective.