How Bad Is Prison Food?

Serving inmates low-quality food is cheap in the short term, but it can lead all kinds of health problems that prisons (and taxpayers) pay for in the long run. Learn how cheap American prison food is and why that's a problem in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Rain Stuff
Lauren vogelbom here. The American prison system is an overcrowded,
sometimes draconian maze that houses more than two million people
in more than one thousand, seven hundred state prisons, one
hundred and nine federal prisons, more than three thousand, one
hundred local jails, some one thousand, seven hundred juvenile facilities,

(00:23):
military prisons, immigration detention centers, psychiatric facilities, and on and
on and on. The many problems inherent in the setup
are deep and disturbing, often overlooked, but still a critical issue.
The food in most lock ups is horrible. What the
system provides to those millions now incarcerated in the American
prison system is to many nothing short of a public

(00:44):
health crisis. Some might consider it a crime in itself,
cruel and unusual. We spoke with Loretta Rafe, a policy
researcher for the advocacy group Prison Voice Washington. She said,
when we're talking about the quality of the food, we're
not concerned with how the food tastes so much. Prisoners
are not asking for tasty, luxury food. They just want
food that's nutritious, people think that prisoners are asking for

(01:07):
flam and yon. That's not it. They're just wanting food
that's not processed with a bunch of texturized vegetable protein
and unhealthy oils and white flour. They just want fresh
vegetables and fruit and a sufficient amount of protein. The
challenges in feeding a prison population that large and doing
it cheaply enough that the taxpayers who fit the bill
don't revolt can't be downplayed. It's expensive to feed that

(01:27):
many prisoners. Estimates range in the millions of dollars a
year per state. It's complicated too, as it is on
the outside, one type of meal does not fit all.
Some inmates require special diets on religious grounds at kosher
or halal, for example, or for health reasons like gluten
or dairy free. The rules on special requests vary from
state to state, and even from facility to facility. Many

(01:50):
prisons will accommodate requests when they can, but it's not
always easy or effective. For example, an inmate in New
York went to court in twenty eighteen to force state
prisons to recognize his right to meals that did not
set off a dairy allergy and that were suitable for
his diet as a Nazarite Jew. A federal judge sided
with the state, ruling that the prisoner's demands would place
an undue burden on the state. Later, an appeals court

(02:13):
overturned that decision. The New York case noted that the
Upstate correctional facility has a kosher kitchen and a Kosher
meal plan, though that wasn't suitable for Nazarites. But many
prisons throughout the nation do not have specialized kitchens because
more and more have their meals prepackaged and shipped in
from off site vendors in order to cut costs. A

(02:33):
twenty sixteen report by Prison Voice Washington described the situation
like this as Correctional Industries, Washington State's prison food vendor,
took over food services around the state. It gradually eliminated
all freshly prepared natural food without exception, every single main
course is now a reheated, highly processed Correctional Industries product
with high amounts of sodium. Apart from the occasional serving

(02:55):
of beans, lean natural proteins are never served at any meal.
Unprocessed meat is never served. For example, the word turkey
on the menu doesn't mean that inmates receive turkey meat,
but rather a processed formed product containing soy, protein, sugar
and some amount of turkey material, and even those simmered
beans a healthier choice were only offered five times per

(03:17):
every twenty eight days. Even if the food is prepared
in a way that meets religious or dietary requirements, that
doesn't mean it's nutritious or that the meal is balanced. Often,
if an inmate is, say, dairy intolerant, the dairy from
the meal is simply removed. Nothing replaces it. Aside from
special needs meals, an average meal at an average jail

(03:38):
or penitentiary is about what you'd expect, often skimpy, locking
in nutrition and entirely on appetizing, and of course cheap.
According to The Guardian, in some prisons, inmates are fed
on less than a dollar and twenty cents a day.
Thanksgiving meal at Maricopa County, Arizona Jail under former hardline
shriff Joe or Pyo cost fifty six cents. According to

(03:59):
the Marshall Price, which is a non profit journalism group
that works on criminal justice topics, the meal included a
cup of carrots, a cup of mashed potatoes, and the
main course five ounces, that's one hundred and forty one
grams of turkey soy casserole. Riffey said, just go compare
those labels to like an organic cat food label. Sometime
you'll see that there are a lot nicer cat food

(04:21):
products that a lot of prisoners would prefer to eat.
But they're prisoners, right, And the argument that because prisoners
have committed crimes that have warranted incarceration means they don't
deserve anything but the food basics ignores a basic truth.
Bad food leads to unhealthy eaters. Unhealthy eating leads to
health problems, and that leads to excessive health care costs.

(04:44):
A Department of Justice study in twenty eleven to twenty twelve,
the last year that the National Inmate Study was conducted,
reported that seventy four percent of inmates in state and
federal prisons and jails are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese.
Health conditions that are tied to obesity include heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
and answer. A Prison Policy Initiative analysis found that quote
correctional agencies spend almost six times more on healthcare than

(05:07):
on food, and who pays for the incarcerated who must
be treated for those types of diseases the taxpayers. So
in the end, cutting cost corners by slapping down meals
lacking any nutritional value ends up costing everyone. The National
Commission on Correctional health Care, in a report to Congress
titled the Health Status of Soon to be Released Inmates,

(05:28):
points out the wisdom and paying more attention to what
prisons are serving than what they're spending on food. The
report said prisons and jails offer a unique opportunity to
establish better disease control in the community by providing improved
health care and disease prevention to inmates before they're released.
That starts, advocates say, by putting better food on the tray.

(05:53):
Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by
Tyler Klang. Brainstuff is a production of iHeartRadio's House Stuff Works.
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