Reforming Prison Food: Strategies for Improving Nutrition and Health

1. Introduction

This essay explores strategies for improving nutrition and health in prison, focusing on reforming food systems. Nutritional health within prison extends beyond the prisoner’s food plate and involves the prison food system as a whole, influencing nutritional intake and food selection.

The focus on food systems implicates the entire food chain, including purchase, production, and consumption, rather than limiting attention to food production or consumption alone. Improving nutritional health in a low resource setting such as prison calls for understanding the prison food system in its context.

First, the prison food system must be understood as a livelihood nexus, within which various actors operate food systems to maintain their livelihoods, expectations, and needs. Moreover, improving nutritional health entails understanding nutritional intake and food selection through viewing food systems as food environments, considering the prison implementation context, and rethinking intervention strategies.

Prison food systems are often undesirable food environments due to institutional context, food-based interventions. Reforming prison food systems and improving nutritional health through food environments hold promise for devising desirable food environments, enhancing nutritional health programming in prison, and ensuring equitable intervention designs.

This far-reaching investigation of prison food systems and nutritional health opens new avenues for research, enhances prison health discourse, and sparks debate on the importance of reforming prison food systems and food-based interventions in prisons.

In prison, food systems constitute a key determinant of nutritional intakes and health. Prison food systems operate at multiple levels (micro, meso, macro) in the hands of various actors (prison administration, food vendors, suppliers), each pursuing intersecting interests towards maintaining their livelihoods.

Prison food systems are implicitly captured in prisoners’ narratives, where food systems are conceptualised as a contested process within which actors leverage access to diverse resources for food production, distribution, and consumption. Prison food systems are complex and context-specific, rendering food production, distribution and consumption susceptible to nuanced differences in structures across diverse prison settings.

Nonetheless, food systems overwhelmingly impact nutritional intakes, feeding back into the prison system and influencing the rehabilitation pathways of prisoners. In sum, the prison food system is a filtered lens for examining the broader contexts that shape prison life and nutritional health. This essay intervenes on the interplay of prisons, food systems and nutrition, engaging food systems as a neglected area within prison health scholarship and contributing to food systems at large 1.

1.1. Background and Importance

Economic, civil rights, security, political, and other complex concerns all come to the forefront when a society’s prison system is discussed. One key aspect of a broad prison system is often overlooked: the food served to inmates—its nutritional value as well as its preparation, service, and consumption.

Food is an important part of any culture, and when the culture in question is radically, albeit temporarily, altered, individuals’ relationships with food also change. These changes, often for the worse, can have an impact not only on the health and well-being of individuals consuming the food, but on the broader prison environment as well 2.

In the summer of 2020, the issue of nutritious meals was on the minds of many during the COVID-19 pandemic. Media outlets reported on school boards increasing access to free lunches and ensuring families could access nutritious food for their children.

However, prisons in Canada, particularly Ontario provincial prisons, where one would think access to food would be a given, serve denials of meals, snacks, and urgently needed food items for months on end. Numerous accounts from prisoners and prison staff described food shortages and other food sovereignty issues across the province.

Missing meals and access solely to starches made these nutrition-related issues more apparent. Broadening the focus from the current hunger crisis in Ontario provincial prisons, and looking particularly at food, sheds light on broader socio-political issues currently pressing many Ontario provincial prisoners—an important and central step towards actual reforms and fostering social and spatial justice.

2. Current State of Prison Food

The widespread operation of the American system of mass incarceration creates an immense burden on the food and nutrition system. Current estimates suggest there are over 2.3 million adults incarcerated across more than 6,000 jail and prison facilities in the United States, a number that does not reflect the millions of youth detained in juvenile facilities or the individuals engulfed in the immigration detention system.

The food served to this population is one of the most insulated, systemic, and neglected public health issues in the country 3.

The diet served to prisoners is functionally stable, often characterized by options such as instant potatoes, white bread, and oil-laden soy protein patties. Much of this diet is floating, institutional, chain cooking leftovers not only from dining facilities but also from the USDA schools and food banks.

Consequently, the composition of prison food provisions often corresponds to the racial dynamics of impoverishment in the food system 2. There is a lack of variability across menus and locations. At the state level, for instance, Pennsylvania’s Graterford Facility and New Mexico’s Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility have the same time and handcuffing protocols in conducting the breakfast meal.

Nutrition is another area where concern is raised. Each breakfast consists of three food items with 40-120 calories per item, and breakfast does not provide any fruit or vegetables.

2.1. Nutritional Deficiencies

Prison systems worldwide face many challenges regarding infrastructure, rehabilitative programs, human resources, and other basic services for inmates. Of these needs, food and nutrition systems are essential for the health and well-being of inmates, especially in terms of food safety and quality.

Regarding the internal food safety systems of prisons, institutionalized food purchases and preparations are expected to have more control over basic food safety than meals bought from food vendors outside prison 3. However, due to the austerity of budget, facilities, and staff time dedicated, food and nutrition systems do not meet inmates’ needs in many countries, even in high-income democracies such as the US.

A clear example of food and nutrition does not meet inmates’ needs is the inability to provide adequate nutrition to the population. Human nutritional needs largely overlap worldwide, such as calories and macronutrients, limiting how poorly prison food can provide nutrition to inmates.

However, at the same time, there is a co-occurrence of double burden malnutrition—undernutrition of micronutrients and the overconsumption of sodium and sugar—in prison food, which has an important relationship with the design of the food purchase system 4.

To find policy approaches to prevent food and nutrition from not meeting inmates’ needs, this study first analyzes the current status of food and nutrition provided to inmates, focusing on nutritional deficiencies and emphasizing the importance of providing food safety and nutrition standards.

3. Challenges in Reforming Prison Food

There are many people in prison who are overweight or obese, and diets heavy in processed and simple carbohydrates appear to be a major reason. This article takes a look at the barriers and potential solutions for improving nutrition quality, health, and wellbeing behind prison walls.

There are many obstacles to providing prison food, including the procurement of supplies and ingredients, the preparation and cooking of meals, and the serving, and storage of leftovers 2. Each of these components involves the work of a large bureaucracy, and each component can pose challenges to improving nutritional quality.

In many jurisdictions, there are detailed standards and regulations concerning every facet of prisons, much of which descends to the kitchen and what can be served (e.g., type, quality, temperature). Compliance becomes a burden for prison staff who must work within the existing framework, something that can be at odds with providing a wholesome diet.

Other regulations and standards exist regarding temperature and another food safety issue that may impose restrictions on what kinds of food can be made easily (e.g., cooking pasta requires boiling water; the time it takes to cook it means potentially unsafe food). In some prisons there are, or have been, contracts and entanglements with food supply companies that limit possibilities for improving nutrition 4.

3.1. Budgetary Constraints

Budgetary Constraints As indicated in the UK Government’s 2021 prison reform strategy, Reforming and Redeeming, prison staff receive a low per capita yearly catering budget, set by local branch agreements to local authorities. Separating prisons from municipalities would reduce bargaining power in procuring food and nutrition staff.

Considering these budget and staff constraints, improving nutritional aspects of prison food provides a practical approach while examining the feasibility of legislative reform. In Poland, The Code of Execution Penal provides the framework for dietary rules and food preparation in prisons, with control exercised by a department of the Ministry of Justice 3.

Food safety regulations, developed by the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate, require all meals provided for prisoners to comply with standard catering rules. Research on the nutritional value of meals served in minimally secure facilities found that there were deficiencies in macronutrients and a negative prisoner’s life experience.

Years after this prior research, the same facility, the Warsaw Prison, is again examined for approaches to reforming food systems in prisons. Studies of food systems in prisons are scarce, despite food being essential to support physical and mental well-being 2.

There are various expectations of prison food in daily life, including safety and health. Observations and interviews with prison staff were conducted at the Warsaw Prison. After the introduction of meals and dietary supplements prepared off-site, prison staff noted a notable change in the standard of food provided.

Before off-site preparation, meals were strictly vegan and served cold, while after its introduction, there were no limitations for meat or dairy.

4. Strategies for Making Prison Food Healthier

During the year spent developing initial research around prison food and strategies for improving the nutrition and healthfulness of food in jails, one topic stood out: access to fresh produce. A dearth of fresh produce is generally the case in correctional facilities across the country 5.

Fresh produce is essential to healthy eating, and its absence in the diets of those who are incarcerated points to a larger food systems issue. Further, proponents of abusing the communities in which jails or prisons exist, food justice advocates have long pointed out how this sometimes-rural jails find themselves asking deeper questions about justice than simply food justice.

How can pretrial confinement grappling with histories of racialized neighbourhoods, where apples grow, be allied to growing apples in the Bronx? If grass-fed beef and eco-friendly agricultural practices are impossible logistical asks coming from Manhattan within wider systemic obstacles, what does simply good food “need” to look like? To take aim at food justice in jails, an appreciation of infrastructural and logistical realities is necessary.

Jail practitioners, advocates, and the nutritionally-minded engaged in and outside of jails “need to” understand the legitimate interests of food in jails, which otherwise read as ill constructed. The jail setting allows for the consideration of how this complicated interplay of sources of food outside, intervention by concerned entities inside, recipe development, and sometimes-incredible community support attempts to create something that acts conditionally well for all involved 3.

There are two common processes that can additionally be noted: those that might help healthy and political food enter jails more easily—and further revaluation—namely those that sit alongside political knowledge around healthy eating and health equity.

4.1. Increasing Access to Fresh Produce

Increasing access to fresh produce is a key strategy for improving nutrition in prison food systems. In many countries, prisons and jails are largely responsible for the provision of food to incarcerated individuals. However, food systems in confinement settings are often purely reactive and unaccountable kinds of food systems that react to budgetary, regulatory, or legal pressures 5.

Thus, people being fed by these systems often experience the worst diet of all. Because incarceration is also a time of significant health disparities—including food disparities—there is a growing movement to feed the incarcerated, who suffer from high rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypertension, and kidney disease, as well as mental health and substance use issues 4.

Dietary health is regarded as crucial for the management and prevention of chronic disease, especially in vulnerable populations. Improving the health and wellbeing of these individuals has a vital global importance and can potentially reduce chronic disease burden among those affected, as well as the broader population and health costs. Therefore, food systems in prisons have been specifically targeted for reform and improvement.

There are many possible strategies for improving the quality and healthfulness of prison food systems. In many countries, access to fresh produce is already considered a bedrock standard for quality of food. In prison food systems, however, the availability and procurement of fresh produce can be significantly limited.

This potential vulnerability persists in the face of health policies addressing the food environments of communities outside of prisons on the grounds that healthy local foods are not always available to all audiences, especially to lower socioeconomic classifications of individuals.

5. Impact of Healthy Prison Food on Inmates

The impact of healthy prison food on inmates has gained increasing attention and consideration in the field of criminal justice and penology 6. Healthy food options introduced in prison have shown to have positive effects on the physical health of inmates, such as lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease and obesity.

There is an amazing transformation in the cooking and serving of food in medium- and maximum-security prisons such as the New Mexico Penitentiary, which previously served 1,200 calories of nothing but sugary carbs. Resulting in a high rate of diabetes and heart disease among inmates.

Healthy food established at the New Mexico Men’s Medium Correctional Facility since the summer of 2014 is now being expanded to six additional facilities. Inmates on the new diet eat baked chicken breast, fresh vegetables, and brown rice. There are no sodas or juice drinks, no white bread, and no fried food.

The impact of healthy food on the prison population is remarkable. It can be illustrated by simple statistics. For example, intake of added sugars has declined from over 43 daily teaspoons to just over 7 teaspoons. For the first time ever, the weight of inmates in a New Mexico Penitentiary shows an overall decrease. Serious health issues such as diabetes and heart disease have declined by nearly half 2.

5.1. Physical Health Benefits

Prior reports of the impact of healthy prison food on inmates have focused on the tangible physical health improvements that could be attributed to the consumption of healthier, well-rounded meals. One of the most common comments was brief yet insightful: “You just feel better.”

Many inmates reported feeling like they had more energy after they were served healthy meals, like the full meal was actually “feeding” them 4. Thanks to these meals, it was noted that several inmates did not become part of the brisk, fast-paced lifestyle many believe prison is known for. Instead, inmates asserted that it was much easier to maintain a slower and more relaxed lifestyle and that any heightened alertness or energy would instead be closely related to worries about survival or the harshness of incarceration.

Overall, the general perception was that a lack of energy could be attributed to healthy food consumption, which changes the way one’s body feels and acts. Furthermore, physical health could not be understood without the inclusion of mental health as well 2.

6. Conclusion: Reforming Prison Food: Strategies for Improving Nutrition and Health

Current efforts to reform prison food focus on curbing unhealthy donor snacks, providing better menus, and making an effort to increase the quality of prison meals served nationwide 2. Past approaches have largely failed because they routinely undermine the governing interests of each prison involved.

Raising the quality of prison meals under the current food system inevitably relinquishes the prison’s control over food, thus compromising one of its most effective forms of inmate accountability. Simply put, the food system leaves little latitude for multi-pronged approaches that insist on retaining prisons’ control over food while simultaneously raising the quality of it.

An approach is proposed that challenges the current food system while simultaneously enacting social justice in the feeding of inmates. This would work by uplifting the prison community’s own interests by allowing them agency over meal production and preparation. In sum, reforming the prison food system is also a question of reforming the prison itself.

Reforming the feeds of correctional facilities is urgent given troubling health-related findings regarding the current aspects of the prison food system, it would seem feasible. The food system appears to undermine the goals stated by the very accrediting institutions that endorse Farmer’s broader approach of ‘innocence revolution.’

Nearly ubiquitous attempts to achieve fairness, justice, and equity in social relations remain purely cosmetic unless their own gross disparities are addressed in the feeds of America’s adult convict population.

Also Read: Nutritional Benefits and Health Implications of Indian Cuisine

6.1. Summary of Key Points

Prisons across the United States are filled with inmates that eat a diet consistent with the U.S. population: a diet higher in fats (saturated and trans fat), sodium, added sugars, and lower in fruits and vegetables than recommended. The prison food system is complex, with many stakeholders involved. The purpose of this essay is to: (a) summarise deficiencies in inmate food intake and food environments in prisons; (b) address challenges of incorporating more nutritionally adequate food options in prisons; and (c) recommend and discuss future avenues for public health research and policy advocacy to improve the quality of food inmates eat while in prison.

The US prison population is over 2.1 million people and 26% of these people are racial or ethnic minorities. The federally funded policies, prisons, and culture developed in the 1980s and 1990s marginalised vulnerable populations and are still present today. Outside of rehabilitative programmes, people’s health needs are neglected in prison systems.

Food intake is a modifiable risk factor for obesity and chronic disease. Research shows that compared to those with no history of incarceration, formerly incarcerated people have a greater risk of diabetes, poorer mental health, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and obesity. Inmate food intake, which is largely controlled by the prison food services department, is very low in quality and security personnel in prisons often dictate what food can be eaten 5.

References:

1. Woodall J. Health promotion in prisons: an overview and critique of the concept. 2012. [PDF]

2. Struthers Montford K., The Embodiment of Contempt: Ontario Provincial Prison Food. 2023. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

3. Stanikowski P, Michalak-Majewska M, Domagała D, Jabłońska-Ryś E et al. Implementation of Dietary Reference Intake Standards in Prison Menus in Poland. 2020. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4. G. Mainous A, Bernard J, Auguste S, R. Louis J et al. A cautionary tale for health education initiatives in vulnerable populations: Improving nutrition in Haiti prisons. 2022. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

5. V. Lopez N, Spilkin A, Brauer J, Phillips R et al. Nutritional adequacy of meals and commissary items provided to individuals incarcerated in a southwest, rural county jail in the United States. 2022. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

6. Johnson C, Chaput JP, Rioux F, Diasparra M et al. An exploration of reported food intake among inmates who gained body weight during incarceration in Canadian federal penitentiaries. 2018. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov