Prisoners Call Nutraloaf Unfit: Problems with Catering to Prisoners

Trouble is brewing in Vermont as prisoners sue over the flavor of a staple food given to unruly inmates. According to the Associated Press, the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments this week over whether a meal known as Nutraloaf is food or a cruel form of punishment. Separately, the ingredients of Nutraloaf are not uncommon and are, mostly, quite nutritious. Nutraloaf consists of cubed whole wheat bread, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes. According to an article found at www.wtop.com/?sid=1370615&nid=104, Rob Hofmann, the Vermont Corrections Commisioner, said "It's commonplace in other states as a way of providing nutrition in a mechanism which dissuades inmates from throwing feces, urine, trays and silverware. It tends to have the desired outcome. When an offender relents, we stop with the Nutraloaf."

One example of an inmate who was given Nutraloaf is Christopher Williams, 29, who was charged in the 2006 school shooting in Essex. Williams was given Nutraloaf after assaulting guards and smearing his cell with excrement. Since then, Williams has done nothing to warrant a repeat diet of Nutraloaf, according to Hofmann. So, should the questionable taste of a nutritionally complete food given to dangerous inmates even be up for debate?

As a country, we treat our prisoner's better than many others, but we also have a higher crime rate. Is our current prison system an effective deterrent for potential criminals? A few years ago, I toured the Pendleton Correctional Facility in Pendleton, Indiana as part of a college course at Ball State University. Inside the facility, the grounds were landscaped, the quaint little chapel was available for prisoner's to visit and the recreation room offered table tennis and a big screen television. Prisoners were able to get free college educations, in addition to several other types of classes, through visiting professors. And I have known good, law-abiding people in this country and others who have had to go without any food at all.

Sometimes, it seems as though the prisoner's have more advocates than their innocent victims. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a National Prison Project whose sole purpose is to protect criminals and their rights. Vermont even has it's own Prisoner Rights Office. And prisoners, most of whom have plenty of free time and access to law libraries, file a plethora of frivolous suits each year. John Mahorney, serving life in prison at Crabtree Correctional Facility in Oklahoma for first-degree murder, has filed between seventy and eighty lawsuits so far, according to NewsOn6.com. And, in addition to the tax money required to house and feed an inmate, the Attorney General's office must expend time and money defending each and every lawsuit against it.

Though we treat our prisoners better than most countries do, we also have one of the highest crime rates of any developing country. According to statistics website Nationmaster.com, the United States has the eighth highest crime rate in the world, per capita. South Africa, Germany and Zimbabwe have lower crime rates than we do. Clearly, we're doing something wrong, and it's benefiting our criminals and costing innocent people who are their victims. Victims of crimes, victims of a system which spends so much money catering to those in society who steal, injure, drive drunk, molest children, rape and kill. But until those in power see a problem with this gross imbalance, our tax dollars will continue to be used in this sad and ineffectual way.

Sources:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
http://www.newson6.com/global/story.asp?s=7868364
http://www.aclu.org/prison/index.html
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7bwyBPC9uxrbrzKONt2Fy0xgYpwD8VILN5G4