To Save Money, Some Prisons Try Skimping on Food

Depending on where you're arrested in metro Detroit, you can expect quite a lot of regional variation in the jail menu. In Troy, you might get a warmed-over frozen meal. Elsewhere, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or in Livonia, a cellophane-wrapped cheeseburger (no condiments) and a plastic container of lemonade.

One thing all these menus have in common? They're all being eyed by officials as a potential source of saved cash. Though cities, counties and the state can't very well withhold sustenance from prisoners, across Michigan — and around the country — prisons are trying to find ways to cut back on spending on food.

In many cases, it's a question of simple exigency. Last year, Detroit's budget for jail food was $350,000. This fiscal year, it's less than half that sum.

In Warren, MI, where the budget for prisoner food is $7,500 a year, the local jail has stopped serving danishes for breakfast, and has instead started handing out ham and cheese sandwiches, which are now served for all meals. Other states have made similar moves, too: In Alabama, where prisoners used to receive three pieces of fruit a week, prisoners now receive an apple or orange once every seven days. Likewise, milk has been reduced from seven servings a week to three.

In Georgia, where prisoners have long been served only two meals on the weekends, the state recently eliminated lunch on Fridays, too.

We've written here before about some of the creative ways prisons are trying to make money, including the sale of junk food (Pepsis, vanilla cookies, cheeseburgers, etc.) in prison commissaries — and in Massachusetts, attempting to charge prisoners $5 a day for their stay.

But when it comes to prison food, says Gordon A. Crews — co-author of A History of Correctional Violence — the issue of prison food shouldn't be treated just a question of taste or variety. Between 1900 and 1995, he says, food issues prompted more than 40 prison riots, including the deadliest uprising the nation's yet seen in 1971 at Attica, which led to the death of 43 people.

Fortunately, there are a number of initiatives that can not only save states cash, but offer prisoners healthier food, too: for example, efforts to turn prisoners into farmers. As the LA Times puts it, "The quality and quantity of grub can mean the difference between peace and violence in the cellblocks."

Photo Credit: Marshall Astor - Food pornographer