On August 3, 1998, in response to an increased demand for welfare fraud prosecution, the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office assigned a Deputy District Attorney (DDA) to vertically prosecute welfare fraud cases. This DDA is physically located with the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the Community Services Agency, encouraging a close working relationship between the DDA and the welfare fraud investigators. The DDA is responsible for prosecuting each welfare fraud case from start to finish.

Welfare fraud most commonly consists of welfare recipients failing to report income, failing to report that an absent parent is no longer absent, or failing to report that aided children no longer live in the aided household. Through this fraud, welfare recipients receive cash aid and/or food stamps for which they are ineligible. Through criminal prosecution, the DDA seeks, among other things, restoration to the taxpayers of each and every dollar overpaid to the recipient; this is accomplished through a court order for restitution, followed by aggressive pursuit of payment by a collection agent in the SIU.

In Stanislaus County in 1998, 149 cases were referred to the District Attorney's Office for prosecution as compared with 115 cases in 1997. Additionally, from August, 1998, through January,1999 , successful prosecutions have produced $333,147.00 in court ordered restitution.

The redoubled efforts to ferret out and vigorously prosecute welfare fraud has come about as a component of federally mandated “welfare reform” In August, 1996, President Clinton signed into law The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), sounding the death knell for “welfare as we know it” and putting a new emphasis on “welfare to work.” Bloated welfare rolls, populated by families with generational dependence on welfare, have been reduced dramatically. In Stanislaus County, the number of families on welfare has gone from 16,092 cases in January, 1995, to 10,514 cases in January, 1998. “Welfare to work” is working.

PRWORA mandates that states' welfare recipients move from welfare dependence to self-sufficiency. California's implementation of PRWORA has been dubbed “CalWORKS”, short for California Work Opportunities and Responsibility to Kids. States which fail to meet PRWORA standards are sanctioned. PRWORA provides no extra money when a baby is born to a woman already on welfare, imposes a two year limit for continuous aid (with a five year lifetime cap), disqualifies those persons who have active felony arrest warrants and those persons convicted of a felony drug offense, and requires that aided children be immunized and attend school with a minimum of absences.

Welfare reform, together with vigilant detection and prosecution of fraud, have reduced the welfare rolls in our county, thereby reducing the burden on taxpayers, have put previously unproductive citizens back to work, and have restored through restitution orders, taxpayer dollars stolen through fraud.