About the Author: JailResource.com is an online community for inmates, their friends and family. We seek to provide information on all county and local jails, bring abuses to light, and provide a platform for those affected either directly or indirectly by the jail system. Jail Resource does so by: vetting bail bonds companies to ensure they comply with local and federal regulations, providing a vibrant online community for inmates, friends and family, and by keeping an up-to-date database of county jail information.

Here is their guest post:

When I first saw it my mood instantly sank. It sat on a pale pink tray, barely luke-warm, and had as much character as a broken chair. This was the meal I had been waiting for since being booked into jail? The one thing I thought I could look forward to was a decent meal. Instead I was given tasteless spaghetti with some heavily processed bologna mixed in, soggy vegetables to the side, and two slices of firm wheat bread. Words cannot truly describe the state of food they serve to inmates here and that was one of my better meals.

This account of inmate food by David (last name withheld) a former inmate at Salt Lake County Jail in Salt Lake City, Utah is echoed by inmates across our nations county and local jails. The history of food standards we enjoy in the general public and those practiced in our nations jails and prison system are two different stories.

Food in laws in the United States have a long history dating back to the times of the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages laws governing food largely disappeared as society broke down. With the Renaissance bringing the age of enlightenment we saw the return of food laws to Europe. These laws then spread to America during the colonial period. In response to squalor conditions at meat-packing plants the United States Congress enacted the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. By 1933 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was created.

The other story of food laws is one of the prison and jail systems being thoroughly ignored by food quality reforms throughout the centuries. Serving unpalatable food to inmates has been regarded as an additional way of punishing law breakers. In many regards this rather barbaric thought process has been pervasive enough to survive into modern times. Care of inmates has often lagged behind the general population by many decades if not centuries and food is no different. The news media and Internet are abound with reports of inmates being served food not fit for human consumption.

Leading the continued low quality of food are companies that provide food services to jails. Recently one such company, Armarak, was able to win a contract at Albany County Jail in New York. How did they do it? Armarak did so by providing so-called quality food at $2.89 per inmate, per day. That amounts to about 96 cents per meal. How can a nutritious meal be provided for just 96 cents? Most can’t fathom how this is possible. Just take a look at your local grocery store and see what 96 cents buys you. You’d be hard-pressed to get something out of a vending machine for that amount. Currently, the best protection inmates have against bad food is the 8th Amendment which protects all U.S. citizens from cruel and unusual punishment.

What we need is additional legislation protecting inmates from such low quality food. We are not suggesting thanksgiving everyday or any day, but inmates certainly deserve to be treated with some dignity and not be dehumanized by the food served. When we asked Dave, the former inmate we opened this article with, about his thoughts on the 8th Amendment and jail food he chuckled a bit and replied: “it might not be cruel, but that food is certainly unusual.”