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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. By the way, I meant to say at the end of our Maya Wiley Ask The Mayor tryout that we have other election coverage all over the WNYC and Gothamist world. We have explainers, profiles, analysis, rank choice voting info, very much of it on the Gothamist site at gothamist.com.

Now, here's a startling statistic, people behind bars are six times more likely to experience food poisoning than those on the outside. That's because many facilities, the budget for feeding people is as low as just $3 a day. That's a $1 breakfast, a $1 lunch, and a $1 dinner. When costs are that low, health and nutrition suffer, but it allows the private companies that contract with prisons and jails to provide meals in a way that makes them very profitable. The sector generates $4 billion in annual revenues, and in many cases, they make even more money operating commissary stores that people turn to in lieu of the institutional meals.

With me now to talk more about this topic are Bianca Tylek, executive director of the advocacy group Worth Rises, and Leslie Soble, a research fellow for the food in prison project and lead author of the recent report by Impact Justice called Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison. As many of by know, this segment is part of our series, in partnership with The Greene Space, and Worth Rises about the business side of the prison industry.

We have these conversations Mondays to preview a Tuesday Greene Space panel on the same topic, they happen at 7:00 PM on Tuesdays, and you can sign up for tomorrow's or any of them by going to thegreenespace.org. Okay, hi, Bianca, welcome back, and Leslie, welcome to WNYC.

Leslie Soble: Thank you so much.

Bianca Tylek: Hi, Brian. Nice to hear you again.

Brian: Leslie, currently as I understand it, corporations that are contracted to provide meals for incarcerated people, like to keep their costs down to about $1 a meal per person, can you walk us through a typical breakfast, lunch, dinner scenario on $3 a day?

Leslie: Sure, and often it's actually less than $3 a day. The meals vary somewhat around the country, but a typical breakfast might include some biscuits with a few pots of margarine, maybe some oatmeal, some milk, maybe a piece of fruit. Typical lunch would be a sandwich on white bread with maybe some sort of lunch meat, or perhaps some iceberg lettuce posing as a salad, maybe a scoop of undercooked beans. Dinner could be something like a processed meat patty and a gravy over noodles, with maybe some canned green beans, some more slices of white bread with margarine, and a big square of yellowcake.

Many facilities also serve a fortified powdered beverage mix with all their meals. It's like a Kool-Aid with added vitamins and minerals that's meant to ensure that the meals comply with an agency's nutritional requirements, but we heard from so many people who've been incarcerated that those mixes had such an awful chemical taste that they didn't actually drink them. Several people told us they were more likely to actually use those as hair dye instead. In general, these cheap meals are really high in sodium, high in sugar, very high in refined carbohydrates, and low in things like fruits and vegetables and quality protein. It's basically the diet that we have all been told to avoid.

Brian: Listeners, as we've been doing throughout our Punishment and Profit series, we're going to open up the phones for your experiences, in this case, your experiences with prison food at 646-435-7280. Anybody listening who's incarcerated right now, what did you have for breakfast? What's for lunch? 646-435-7280, or anyone who was incarcerated at any time, what did you eat in general, and what did it tastes like? Did you ever get sick from eating prison food? I mentioned that food poisoning stat compared to the outside world at the beginning.

Did you experience longer-term health effects in your opinion, like IBS, diabetes, heart disease, anything like that? Did you supplement cafeteria food with food from the commissary?

What role did that play in your diet because of what was served on the institutional tray? Did you supplement cafeteria with food and how cafeteria food, I should say with food from the commissary, and what did it cost you? 646-435-7280. Any relevant experience about eating as an incarcerated person, eating in jail, eating in prison. Is there a particular meal you remember fondly or not? Call in and tell us about it, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

Bianca, many people may not know that there was actually a Supreme Court ruling on this topic in 1978, in a case called Hutto v. Finney, that had to do with food in prisons and jails. You want to tell us about that case and what it changed?

Bianca: Yes, absolutely. The case back in 1978, was actually one of the first cases that determined that it was cruel and unusual punishment to use food in prisons, essentially as a weapon, or a method of torture. At the time, many prisons and jails have served something called gruel which was essentially just like a meal. I mean meal, not as in a meal breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but a meal of products that are put into like a loaf and served. At times, they even had worse things like people subsisting on bread and just water for quite some time.

Hutto v. Finney actually determined that people in prison had a constitutional right to food. The idea that that even was necessary is pretty appalling, but nevertheless. Serving people anything that was substandard to a calorie-sufficient diet was cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately, over the years, based on what we just heard from Leslie, we've seen that they've still found many, many ways around serving calorie-sufficient diets by trying these artificial things, and drinks and things of that sort.

Unfortunately, it did. One of the things that it did do, though, is that encouraged the privatization of food, so it actually brought in all these food service providers from the outside that said, "Oh, we can provide food at an institutional scale, at a lower cost, and actually promise that quality," unfortunately, that just never happened.

Brian: Interesting. Leslie, on the health concerns, when eating meals that are so cheaply prepared, has this been measured? Can you say with confidence based on any data, what some of the health effects have been population-wide among people incarcerated because of the food service industry?

Leslie: The most immediate effect is hunger. We did a nationwide survey of people who had been incarcerated, and 94% of people told us that they did not have enough food during their incarceration to feel full. People told us that the portions were about the same size as you'd see in an elementary school cafeteria for grown men and women. At the same time, so much of the food is inedible, so people aren't even actually eating it.

In terms of the longer-term impacts on physical health, prison food can cause or exacerbate diet-related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart problems. It can weaken the immune system, leaving people more susceptible to infectious diseases like COVID. We heard from people who are suffering long-term health effects like ulcers, and gall stones, and anemia, and damage to their bones from not enough calcium, ongoing struggles to maintain a healthy weight.

Food doesn't just impact physical health. There's actually research that shows that a diet low in certain critical nutrients can cause mental health issues ranging from things like depression and brain fog, to impaired decision-making, and aggressive and violent behavior. There's also research that makes connections between things like food and trauma, and food and substance use. The typical prison diet is actually more likely to perpetuate a cycle of poor coping skills and health issues when it comes to things like trauma and substance use than it is to actually help it.

95% of people who are incarcerated will eventually be released and the diet that is currently served in most facilities is pretty much ensuring that people are going to be released in worse physical and mental health than they went in, which is impacting not only those individuals, but also their families and their communities.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. AJ in Queens, you're on WNYC. Thanks so much for calling in. Hi, AJ.

AJ: Hey, good morning. How are you?

Brian: Good. You got a story for us I see?

AJ: Sure. I was incarcerated for 27 years, and I've been home almost 12 years. I must say that the diet that we had was definitely something that contributed to a lot of medical conditions that I've experienced. In fact, when I came home, I had a stomach disorder, and not to mention, as far as our diabetes and things is concerned, would supplement our meals with the commissary, but the commissary was high in sodium and sugar. What would happen is we'd end up with hypertension and our sugar levels would be off the rack because we needed to try and do something to give some type or form of a nutrition.

As a result of the food that was provided to us, it didn't give us much of the nutrition. In fact, even the juice that it was given, many of us from a long time ago, we had the feeling that they did have some type of other chemicals that was involved in it to reduce certain behaviors. Nonetheless, it wasn't something that you would really want to consume on a regular.

Brian: Did you have any way to complain to the authorities about the food you were being given or any of the other people that you knew when you were incarcerated or anything on a group basis like that?

AJ: You would have to form an inmate grievance. You could file an inmate grievance, but again, the inmate grievance is internal and because of the vendors outside, it wasn't so much that it would be adhered to. It would only be like, "We would look into it. We'll look into it, and we'll get back to you ,"or, "We will change the diet," but what they changed the diet to was still something that was less than nutritional for you.

If you wasn't aware of what the nutritional factors were for that particular diet, you would have thought, "Oh, okay, well, everything is good," but in actuality it wasn't, it was still the same thing. It was just that they changed the meal and that was it. The grievance process itself really didn't do anything except perform a psychological sedation for the person that filed it.

Brian: Psychological sedation. Good phrase. AJ, thank you so much for your call. Similar to that, somebody is tweeting. Of course we can't verify this, but somebody is tweeting, "My mom developed diabetes this way, very disparaging nutrition substitutes." Janet in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Janet. Thank you so much for calling in.

Janet: Hi, I listen to you every day. It's so coincidental that you will be covering this subject because an hour ago, my grandson called me from Fulton prison, Fulton County prison in Georgia. He asked me to write the mayor about the food that they're getting there, because once he was transferred to Forsyth it was quite different. The white community quite different, and when they sent him back to Fulton County, he showed us what garbage he has eaten on and he asked me to write the mail complaining about that. This was just an hour ago he called me. Don't want to take up too much of your time.

Brian: To the mayor of Atlanta in this case, right? No, no. You want to give us any details of what kinds of food and get even more specific. I'm sure people would love to hear it.

Janet: I couldn't even explain it because he showed us once on my daughter's cell phone, he showed it once and I don't know if it was grit sundae. The other thing looked like some kind of egg, like, I just don't know what it was.

Brian: Janet, I wonder if we can get you some help. Bianca, do you want to take this because Janet's grandson is appealing to her to try to intervene about the food.

Bianca: Yes. We're happy Janet, if you want to leave your information with the show's producers we're happy to follow up. I think this question is one as Leslie has articulated so well, it's one that's really plaguing people all over the country. I want to say we want to get relief for your son for many of the others who are in those facilities. It was interesting to know like who are serving the actual food in those places.

If you start thinking about the corporations that are serving that food, you start to think about those that actually we come into contact with every single day. I don't know who's down, like what who has the contract over Fulton County Jail, but we'd more than happy to collect that. I'd love to-- I speak a little bit about AJ's point, but I want to make sure we get her information for.

Brian Lehrer: Janet, if you would like to, it's up to you, of course, but if you want to leave your contact information, we'd be happy to take it and connect you with Worth Rises. We have time for one more, Annibal who is in the Rikers Island offshore facility, known as The Boat, currently incarcerated there, calling from the boat. Annibal, you're on WNYC. Hello. Thank you so much for calling in.

Annibal: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. I just want to tell you about, the food in here is the worst thing. The lady say a dollar a meal a day. It is not even worth 25 cent, the food that they was in here. Today's Monday, we get veggies okay, with mashed potato for lunch. Then we get veggie beans in the evening with brown rice. Then on Tuesday, they give me chicken patties or they give us veal patties. Then they give us vegetarian beans and rice again.

Thursday, they give us chicken in the evening and on Sunday they give us chicken in the afternoon. In the morning, they give us the worst breakfast that we always have. It's always the same thing, a little bowl of cereal or half cereal or grits, or all meal. That's what it is. It's not biscuits in here. The only thing they gave us is that it's a multi on a Sunday, but this is the worst food that we'll have. Pasta through your ears, believe me.

This is a worst nutrition that people got in the whole jail system. People in here, we all look like hippos with big bellies. Some of those hydrocarbo stuff like that that they give us in here, the nutrition in here is the worst thing. People getting diabetes, people getting high blood pressure. People get sick in here by the food only. Believe me, Brian, I'm not lying to you. The commissary? You where asking the commissary? The commissary, they give us some, what they call on the street, they crack eggs on soup, the Chinese soup and stuff like that, the ransom, and some rice and maybe a fish or two that put on the commissary. Then they give us a bunch of cookies and potato chips, not nothing that is nutrition.

Brian: Annibal, thank you so much for that report that really helps inform the public about what's going on. Good luck in there. We have time for one more brief comment from each of our guests. Bianca, anything you want to say, but I wonder, since we had a particular complaint there coming from Rikers Island in your New York base, I don't know if there's any appeal to the city on anything having to do with food. Give us a last thought real quick and then I have a last question for Leslie.

Bianca: Yes. Like I said earlier, the issue that we're hearing is the same issue all over the country. I think what I want to really make sure we bring attention to is food can be a really extreme form of violence, in the sense that like people have actually gone to solitary confinement for taking an onion out of the kitchen. Fruits and vegetables, like onions, peppers, lettuce can actually be considered, in most places they're considered contraband, and they can be sold on the black market for a few dollars.

People are that desperate to eat fresh food and to have nutritional value in their diets and in their life, that they will risk going to solitary confinement for weeks at a time. You'll hear from one of our speakers tomorrow evening that had that experience.

Brian: Leslie, just one counterpoint to the stories that we heard from currently or formerly incarcerated people and their family members. Your report talks about how "Home cooking in prison is an important form of resistance within a dehumanizing system." Can you give us just a quick example or two because I think it's so interesting and it helps round out the picture of meals cooked from ingredients at the commissary.

Leslie: Sure. Human beings are incredibly creative and resilient, especially when it comes to food and that doesn't change just because people are incarcerated. People will take commissary ingredients and make everything from burritos, to elaborate birthday cakes. Some folks even have a thriving underground business making snacks or meals that they sell. It's really a means of connecting with other people, a way of reconnecting with a sense of home, a sense of self, because preparing and sharing food with others can really be nourishing to the soul.

It's important to recognize again that the commissary food is mostly ultra processed. It's unhealthy, it's really expensive. Over 60% of our survey respondents told us they couldn't afford to buy a commissary food on prison wages and the people who can afford it are usually the ones with financial support from the outside. Overall, prison food is completely unhealthy even when people are trying to resist that. The experience is still so overwhelmingly degrading and dehumanizing, food arriving not fit for human consumption, and we're communicating messages to people who are incarcerated and about people who are incarcerated.

The message that we're really sending through the food is saying, you are less than human or you're not worthy of care. For people who are receiving that message meal after meal, day after day, for years, or even for decades, it really has an effect on people's mental and emotional state. People who are trying to resist that through commissary are really trying to get back to that human connection with food.

Brian: We thank Bianca Tylek, executive director of the advocacy group, Worth Rises and Leslie Soble, a research fellow for the Food in Prison project and the lead author of the recent report, Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison, released by Impact Justice. You can learn more about this topic tomorrow night because the Worth Rises and The Greene Space series continues, Punishment and Profit. There will be a panel discussion about this issue at seven o'clock tomorrow night, Leslie Soble will be there along with other guests and Bianca, you can find a link to that on our segment page, along with more information about the fantastic series at The Greene space, Punishment and profit. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Bianca: Thank you for having us, Brian.

Leslie: Thank you for having us, Brian.

 

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