Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Rain Stuff
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbom here. The American prison system is an overcrowded,
Speaker 1: sometimes draconian maze that houses more than two million people
Speaker 1: in more than one thousand, seven hundred state prisons, one
Speaker 1: hundred and nine federal prisons, more than three thousand, one
Speaker 1: hundred local jails, some one thousand, seven hundred juvenile facilities,
Speaker 1: military prisons, immigration detention centers, psychiatric facilities, and on and
Speaker 1: on and on. The many problems inherent in the setup
Speaker 1: are deep and disturbing, often overlooked, but still a critical issue.
Speaker 1: The food in most lock ups is horrible. What the
Speaker 1: system provides to those millions now incarcerated in the American
Speaker 1: prison system is to many nothing short of a public
Speaker 1: health crisis. Some might consider it a crime in itself,
Speaker 1: cruel and unusual. We spoke with Loretta Rafe, a policy
Speaker 1: researcher for the advocacy group Prison Voice Washington. She said,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the quality of the food, we're
Speaker 1: not concerned with how the food tastes so much. Prisoners
Speaker 1: are not asking for tasty, luxury food. They just want
Speaker 1: food that's nutritious, people think that prisoners are asking for
Speaker 1: flam and yon. That's not it. They're just wanting food
Speaker 1: that's not processed with a bunch of texturized vegetable protein
Speaker 1: and unhealthy oils and white flour. They just want fresh
Speaker 1: vegetables and fruit and a sufficient amount of protein. The
Speaker 1: challenges in feeding a prison population that large and doing
Speaker 1: it cheaply enough that the taxpayers who fit the bill
Speaker 1: don't revolt can't be downplayed. It's expensive to feed that
Speaker 1: many prisoners. Estimates range in the millions of dollars a
Speaker 1: year per state. It's complicated too, as it is on
Speaker 1: the outside, one type of meal does not fit all.
Speaker 1: Some inmates require special diets on religious grounds at kosher
Speaker 1: or halal, for example, or for health reasons like gluten
Speaker 1: or dairy free. The rules on special requests vary from
Speaker 1: state to state, and even from facility to facility. Many
Speaker 1: prisons will accommodate requests when they can, but it's not
Speaker 1: always easy or effective. For example, an inmate in New
Speaker 1: York went to court in twenty eighteen to force state
Speaker 1: prisons to recognize his right to meals that did not
Speaker 1: set off a dairy allergy and that were suitable for
Speaker 1: his diet as a Nazarite Jew. A federal judge sided
Speaker 1: with the state, ruling that the prisoner's demands would place
Speaker 1: an undue burden on the state. Later, an appeals court
Speaker 1: overturned that decision. The New York case noted that the
Speaker 1: Upstate correctional facility has a kosher kitchen and a Kosher
Speaker 1: meal plan, though that wasn't suitable for Nazarites. But many
Speaker 1: prisons throughout the nation do not have specialized kitchens because
Speaker 1: more and more have their meals prepackaged and shipped in
Speaker 1: from off site vendors in order to cut costs. A
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen report by Prison Voice Washington described the situation
Speaker 1: like this as Correctional Industries, Washington State's prison food vendor,
Speaker 1: took over food services around the state. It gradually eliminated
Speaker 1: all freshly prepared natural food without exception, every single main
Speaker 1: course is now a reheated, highly processed Correctional Industries product
Speaker 1: with high amounts of sodium. Apart from the occasional serving
Speaker 1: of beans, lean natural proteins are never served at any meal.
Speaker 1: Unprocessed meat is never served. For example, the word turkey
Speaker 1: on the menu doesn't mean that inmates receive turkey meat,
Speaker 1: but rather a processed formed product containing soy, protein, sugar
Speaker 1: and some amount of turkey material, and even those simmered
Speaker 1: beans a healthier choice were only offered five times per
Speaker 1: every twenty eight days. Even if the food is prepared
Speaker 1: in a way that meets religious or dietary requirements, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's nutritious or that the meal is balanced. Often,
Speaker 1: if an inmate is, say, dairy intolerant, the dairy from
Speaker 1: the meal is simply removed. Nothing replaces it. Aside from
Speaker 1: special needs meals, an average meal at an average jail
Speaker 1: or penitentiary is about what you'd expect, often skimpy, locking
Speaker 1: in nutrition and entirely on appetizing, and of course cheap.
Speaker 1: According to The Guardian, in some prisons, inmates are fed
Speaker 1: on less than a dollar and twenty cents a day.
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving meal at Maricopa County, Arizona Jail under former hardline
Speaker 1: shriff Joe or Pyo cost fifty six cents. According to
Speaker 1: the Marshall Price, which is a non profit journalism group
Speaker 1: that works on criminal justice topics, the meal included a
Speaker 1: cup of carrots, a cup of mashed potatoes, and the
Speaker 1: main course five ounces, that's one hundred and forty one
Speaker 1: grams of turkey soy casserole. Riffey said, just go compare
Speaker 1: those labels to like an organic cat food label. Sometime
Speaker 1: you'll see that there are a lot nicer cat food
Speaker 1: products that a lot of prisoners would prefer to eat.
Speaker 1: But they're prisoners, right, And the argument that because prisoners
Speaker 1: have committed crimes that have warranted incarceration means they don't
Speaker 1: deserve anything but the food basics ignores a basic truth.
Speaker 1: Bad food leads to unhealthy eaters. Unhealthy eating leads to
Speaker 1: health problems, and that leads to excessive health care costs.
Speaker 1: A Department of Justice study in twenty eleven to twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: the last year that the National Inmate Study was conducted,
Speaker 1: reported that seventy four percent of inmates in state and
Speaker 1: federal prisons and jails are overweight, obese, or morbidly obese.
Speaker 1: Health conditions that are tied to obesity include heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
Speaker 1: and answer. A Prison Policy Initiative analysis found that quote
Speaker 1: correctional agencies spend almost six times more on healthcare than
Speaker 1: on food, and who pays for the incarcerated who must
Speaker 1: be treated for those types of diseases the taxpayers. So
Speaker 1: in the end, cutting cost corners by slapping down meals
Speaker 1: lacking any nutritional value ends up costing everyone. The National
Speaker 1: Commission on Correctional health Care, in a report to Congress
Speaker 1: titled the Health Status of Soon to be Released Inmates,
Speaker 1: points out the wisdom and paying more attention to what
Speaker 1: prisons are serving than what they're spending on food. The
Speaker 1: report said prisons and jails offer a unique opportunity to
Speaker 1: establish better disease control in the community by providing improved
Speaker 1: health care and disease prevention to inmates before they're released.
Speaker 1: That starts, advocates say, by putting better food on the tray.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Brainstuff is a production of iHeartRadio's House Stuff Works.
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