For cruelty's sake: Texas prisons lose money every year to keep prisoners picking cotton, other field crops

Texas ended "convict leasing" - essentially hiring out prisoners as slave labor - just more than a century ago, but the prison system's Agricultural Division never really stopped so much as they brought the practice in house.

TDCJ officials have testified under oath that having prisoners pick cotton in the summer heat is "essential" to the agency's operations. But we learned recently the agency is actually paying for the privilege of doing so. It'd be cheaper to buy it on the open market.

Over the last five years, according to a recently released state audit, the agency lost money every year on cotton and other non-edible field crops, spending $6.83 million more over five years than they'd have paid to simply purchase the products.

At least one year, losses had been attributed to Hurricane Harvey. But it turns out, it's an ongoing problem in the same way the agency's food canning operation has been losing money.

Overall, 46% of products produced by TDCJ would have cost less if purchased on the open market.

It's worth mentioning, Texas is one of only three states where prisoners are paid nothing for their work, so we're essentially saying TDCJ can't turn a profit on these operations using slave labor.

If you can't make a profit with no labor costs, maybe you're not very good at business, or at least are in the wrong one. Perhaps the field-crop program just isn't such a great idea? 

By contrast, the agency's beef, pork and livestock programs earn significant profits, and the value of edible crops was much lower but at least greater than the cost of growing them.

Even so, profit shouldn't be the biggest concern and arguably prioritizing it is a holdover from the convict-leasing era. A few years ago, Ohio closed all its prison farms on the grounds that it made no sense to train prisoners for agricultural jobs when that's not the type of work most enter upon release.

Certainly that's true in Texas, too. Texas prisons aren't operating their Ag program because that's the best way to prepare prisoners for reentry. They're operating it out of inertia, because they've always done so, whether it makes penological, much less financial sense, or not. And maybe also, just for cruelty's sake.

BONUS: Check out [Cotton Picking Time in] Tulia, TX, a tune about TDCJ field workers written by my pal Jeff Frazier back in the day and sung by the great Malford Milligan.

On Class C arrests and a "duty to intervene," James White on "colonizing" Austin PD, and Anthony Graves on how bad prison food ruins prisoners' health: Part One of Special Podcast on #TexasGeorgeFloydAct

The Reasonably Suspicious podcast is back after a largely health-driven hiatus. Mandy and I are diving back in with Part One of a special, two-part episode on the Texas George Floyd Act, HB 88 by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson. The episode features new, original music created for radio ads and online promotion of the George Floyd Act, as well as interviews with Rep. Thompson, Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Chair James White, and exoneree Anthony Graves, who came on to talk to us about the TDCJ prison budget. We also discuss the existence of "Schrodinger's Defendant," comparable to "Schrodinger's Cat": A concept I think may evolve into a more robust critique going forward. 

The first half hour of the show takes a deep dive into the issue of Class C misdemeanor arrests, using the case of Dillon Puente out of Keller, Texas to spotlight the problem. Dillon was arrested for a wide right turn, but really so police could search his car. (Spoiler: The search found nothing, but before they were finished they'd arrested him and pepper sprayed his Dad.) We also spoke to James White about a case out of Plano where a young black man on his way home from Walmart was arrested during the recent Snowpocalypse. 

Chairman White, whose committee oversees the Texas Department of Public Safety, also took a moment to discuss Gov. Greg Abbott's suggestion that DPS "colonize" the Austin Police Department, in his words. Austin folks will want to hear this.(35:58)

Finally, exoneree Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years incarcerated in Texas prisons before being proven actually innocent, spoke with us about the need for the Legislature to boost funding for prison food and treatment that helps prisoners reenter society. (41:55)

Find a transcript below the jump. Enjoy!

Boost Texas prisoner food budgets 39 cents per prisoner/day

If your annual food budget was $800 per person and that money had to last all year, how would you spend it?

I'll give you a moment: Try to imagine what that would look like.

Having recently spent >$250 at my big, post-SNOVID trip to HEB, Grits can hardly fathom eating for a year on that amount. But that's the dilemma facing cafeteria cooks and nutritionists at TDCJ, where prisoners have been receiving food during COVID more suitable for pig slop than human consumption.

This is what Texas feeds prisoners
on an $800/year food budget

That said, in Texas prisons the pigs are air conditioned while the prisoners and guards are not, so it's likely the pigs eat better than this.

With the Texas Department of Criminal Justice poised to realize nine figures in budget saving thanks to newly closed prison units, the Legislative Budget Board had suggested the agency reduce its budget by $148 million and send that money back to the General Revenue pot. The group I lead, Just Liberty, is requesting they spend that money instead on two items: 1) Expanded treatment funding to move paroled prisoners out of lockups sooner, and 2) increasing prisoner food budgets by $17 million per year.

We discussed the treatment funding in the last post; let's delve deeper into TDCJ food budgets.

Food spending at TDCJ peaked at $106,601,431 paying for food for 155,076 inmates as of 8/31/09. That comes out to $687.41 per inmate spent on groceries in 2009, if you can imagine! 

If that amount had risen with inflation, food spending at TDCJ would currently be at $854.51 per prisoner.

Today, Texas incarcerates fewer people than we did back then - 119,541 as of January 2021 -  but only spends ~$810.56 per prisoner on food.*

Just Liberty is recommending boosting the food budget by 39 cents per day, per prisoner. That comes out to $17 million per year total, or roughly $952.77 per inmate. That's still an insanely small sum to eat on for a year, but it should give the agency enough leeway to improve prisoners' fare.

A final note: We only know how bad prison food is thanks to photos sent to reporters from contraband cell phones. Staff portray cell phones as dangerous contraband, but IRL they're the most important innovation in carceral accountability we've witnessed in the 21st century. Similar to bystander video of police brutality, cell phones in prisons have documented treatment long-alleged but difficult to prove.

Now, thanks to documented, firsthand examples across many units, we know complaints about Texas prison food aren't just whining from criminals: No one would feed this slop to anyone related to them.

With only a few exceptions, most Texas legislators consider themselves Christians. Well, this is one of those moments implicated in Matthew 25:40, wherein the disciples protested that they'd never visited Jesus in prison or fed him when he was hungry, as he'd described. Christ replied that, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Grits wants to ask state budget writers directly how they'd answer that question at the Pearly Gates: Is 39 cents per day too much to ask for the "least of these"?

Texas doesn't pay prisoners for their labor and, thanks to widespread guard understaffing, the truth is at this point they're largely who's keeping the prisons running. A decent meal isn't too much to ask.

For Keri Blakinger and thousands of hungry Texas prisoners.

*Prison populations have been dropping during COVID; when they budgeted for this fiscal year, the Legislature had been told to expect a much higher prison population, so these per-prisoner numbers look much better than they could have.

Blakinger scores big victory for hungry TDCJ inmates, visitation denied, why people convicted of unconstitutional statutes are innocent, and other stories

Here are a few odds and ends that merit Grits readers' attention:

TDCJ to improve lockdown food

The Marshall Project's Keri Blakinger hit another home run recently with her story on what Texas prisoners are being fed during lockdown. It was sprinkled with stomach-churning contraband cell-phone pics from prisoners that corroborated years of allegations about how awful food could be when prison units are locked down. On Friday, she reported on Twitter that TDCJ has told inmate families they will begin providing raw vegetables, cartoned milk instead of powdered, and are considering how to source fruit, pizza and hot pockets. Good for TDCJ, even if it took being shamed to improve things. And thank God for Keri Blakinger!

Many prisoners denied visits, phone calls before the lockdowns

Prisoners' families have been upset during the COVID crisis that so many inmates were forbidden access to phones to call them. Recently, some on lockdown have been allowed 5 minute calls, but that's still not much. Michael Barajas at the Texas Observer reminds us that a significant portion of Texas inmates couldn't call their families and had been banned from visitation even before the coronavirus, but TDCJ doesn't track how many are banned or why. Great job, Michael! Grits readers may recall that, earlier this year, TDCJ made visitation and mail policies even more restrictive, punitive and arbitrary. It's great to see some journalistic light shed on the subject.

Texas women inmates cope with COVID

At the Waco Tribune Herald, reporter Brooke Crum provided a window into how women inmates in Gatesville and their families are coping with coronavirus restrictions.

COVID testing rates vary widely at county jails

There are wide disparities in how frequently county jails are testing inmates and staff for the COVID virus, reported the Dallas News. Harris County is testing more broadly; Dallas County, not so much. Travis County, by contrast, is testing far less frequently than either of them. The thinking appears to be that, if you do not test, you won't have to report that anyone is sick. As of yesterday, 1,314 Texas jail inmates and 234 jail staff had been reported as testing positive to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. But because some jails are testing so few people, those numbers are surely an undercount.

Ex-prosecutor could be disciplined for withholding exculpatory evidence

Daniel Rizzo, a former Harris County prosecutor, faces an attorney discipline lawsuit for withholding exculpatory evidence in Alfred Dewayne Brown's murder case, Texas Lawyer reported. Rizzo claims he never saw the phone records which later led Mr. Brown to be declared actually innocent, though they were available in his files.

People convicted of unconstitutional online solicitation statute were actually innocent 

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that people convicted of online solicitation of a minor after the statute was deemed unconstitutional by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals  qualify for innocence compensation under Texas statutes. (The Legislature enacted a new online-solicitation statute in 2015, but not nearly as stringent as the original.) Grits has wondered for years about how innocence claims from these cases would be handled. Now we know.

DOJ should intervene in Harris Co. bail litigation, and other brief notes

Here's a quick roundup of items which merit Grits readers attention even if they haven't made it into independent posts:

• The Houston Chronicle's Mike Ward explained to KUT "Why Texas could close even more prisons."
• A fine for an offense which doesn't exist highlights the absurdity and counterproductive incentives arising from debtors prison policies and practices.
• Jennifer Erschabek of the Texas Inmate Family Association had a column in the Houston Chronicle arguing that "Texas prison reform must get 'smart on people'." 
• Grits contributing writer and Texas Justice Initiative director Amanda Woog had a column on a website called The Conversation titled "Who dies in police custody?," describing how data gathering initiatives in Texas and California are providing a fuller picture of police shootings and deaths in custody for the first time.
• Harris County law enforcement does not use statutory authority to give tickets instead of arresting people for low-level pot offenses, but it's not because of District Attorney opposition, as elsewhere. Rather, it's because disparate computer systems won't support it, according to JoAnne Musick at Reasonable Doubt. "Issuing citations to approximately 14,500 people who could have qualified for cite and release in 2015 alone certainly would have lessened the burden on the jail."
• Texas' new law allowing broader use of life saving naloxone to prevent overdose deaths has been making a huge impact. This news make me even more unhappy about the Governor's veto of related "Good Samaritan" legislation which would have given people immunity from prosecution on drug charges if they called in an overdose to 911, stayed with the victim, and cooperated when authorities arrived. Even more lives could have been saved.
• The US Justice Department intervened in a Georgia lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of money bail. Note to Vanita Gupta: How about joining the Houston litigation?
• News that ramen noodles are a primary currency in prison is a sad commentary on conditions. This reminds me: I wonder if the Victoria County Jail has gone back to hot meals or are inmates still eating cold sandwiches after their nutritionist recommended an expanded menu?

Victoria jail ignores nutritionist limits on serving cold food

No longer do Victoria County Jail inmates receive "three hots and a cot," as the saying goes. The Sheriff switched to cold food only in the jail, eliminating all hot meals after inmates on a kitchen work detail were caught making jailhouse hooch. Reported Jessica Priest of the Victoria Advocate (July 27):

Inmates at the Victoria County Jail are eating sandwiches for lunch and dinner after several inmates were caught making alcohol in the kitchen.

But some inmates and their families have complained hunger is causing even more problems behind bars.

Amanda Garcia, who is in the jail on suspicion of violating the terms of her probation for a July 2015 theft between $500 and $1,500 case, is one of those hungry inmates complaining.

"We've been eating like this for three weeks. There's a lot of people in here mad about it. It's not right," Garcia, 23, said Tuesday.

As it happens, Jail Commission Standards require jail menus to be approved by a nutritionist. She "wrote on the menu that it 'meets the minimum daily requirements for macronutrients,' but 'should be used for less than two weeks, with the hopes of only one week usage.'" At three weeks and counting, they're already ignoring the limit recommended by the nutritionist. She approved the menu as a short-term fix, not ad infinitum.

Apparently, it's a lot cheaper not to cook food. "In July, the sheriff's office spent about $18,000 to feed inmates at the jail. It has budgeted $485,000 annually to feed inmates at the jail, according to the regular department payment register from the July 14 Victoria County Commissioner's Court meeting." So they're radically underspending this month compared to what's budgeted.

Here's a decent primer on when concerns with jail and prison food rise to constitutional levels. It takes a lot. On this particular topic:

Denying prisoners "hot" meals is not a violation of prisoners' rights, if the cold meals provided are adequate nutritionally, and all needed sanitary procedures are followed in the preparation and serving of the meals. Cosby v. Purkett, 782 F.Supp. 1324 (E.D.Mo., 1992).  See also, Amos v. Simmons, 82 P.3d 859 (Kan. App. 2004) (Serving a prisoner a sack lunch rather than a hot meal did not violate his rights when the food provided was nutritionally adequate and met his medical and religious needs.). 

In this case, though, cold meals are being served for longer than the nutritionist recommended and her recommendation to go back to regular meals after a week or two is being ignored. So that sounds to Grits like it may well rise to the level of a constitutional violation.

The jail submitted a four-phase plan to the commission to "restore discipline," replace male trusty staff, and to begin serving hot meals again. Notably, "Phase II begins with the acceptance of the emergency meal schedule by the general inmate population."  Their "acceptance" is an odd goal for a short-term change. Grits has no direct knowledge of the situation, but there's a whiff here of mass punishment for the offenses of a few. The plan envisions cold food being served to inmates for fourteen days under the "emergency meal menu," after which they would switch back. According to the Advocate, this has already been going on three weeks, with no end in sight.

The Victoria Jail's incarceration rate is 3.7 per thousand residents, compared to an average of 2.16 statewide. As of July 1st according to the Commission on Jail Standards, 56 percent of incarcerated inmates being held pretrial, having not yet been convicted of a crime.

Related: From the Marshall Project.

Ban on benefits to women offenders with kids harms reentry, offends common sense

Though Texas relaxed its prohibition on drug offenders receiving food stamps during the latest legislative session, the state remains an outlier when it comes to denying benefits to women convicted of drug offenses who're raising kids on their own. Pew's Stateline.org reported Dec. 29:

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are serving time for drug offenses — nearly a half-million according to the latest numbers available, from 2013. For many ... leaving prison with a felony conviction on their record adds to the hurdles they face re-entering society. A 1996 federal law blocks felons with drug convictions from receiving welfare or food stamps unless states choose to waive the restrictions.

The bans, which don’t apply to convictions for any other crimes, were put in place as part of a sweeping reform of the nation’s welfare system, and at the height of the war on drugs. Now many states are rethinking how to help felons become productive citizens and reduce the likelihood they will return to prison.

Since 1996, 20 states have lifted restrictions on food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and 24 allow people with certain types of drug felonies to get those benefits — leaving six states where a felony drug record disqualifies a person from receiving them.

States have been more restrictive when it comes to extending welfare benefits through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families: 14 have lifted the restriction, 24 have some restrictions and 12 have full restrictions barring felons with a drug conviction from receiving cash assistance.

The story described Texas' new legislation thusly:

[Last] year, Utah, Texas and Alabama became the latest states to lift blanket bans on receiving food stamps.

“If we want people to stay out of trouble we’ve got to give them a hand up, not a foot down,” said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, a Democrat who pushed for the repeal in Texas. She said providing help is much less expensive for the state than paying for repeated incarcerations.

While Texas’ food stamp program is now open to anyone convicted of using or selling drugs, those who violate their probation or parole are ineligible for benefits for two years. If they are convicted of another felony, drug-related or otherwise, they are barred for life.

Alabama scrapped its ban on food stamps and cash assistance.

The Marshall Project on Feb. 4 produced two graphics in a short story, showing Texas among the holdouts

The partial relaxation of the food stamp ban in Texas is great news, but the ban on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families benefits for drug offenders has always baffled me. This is a program which primarily (among drug-offender ex-inmates, nearly exclusively) benefits single women with children. So punishing Mom punishes her kids who didn't do anything. It's no wonder 37 or 38 states (Pew and the Marshall Project offer different counts) have already at least partially lifted the TANF ban. That's one of those penny-wise-pound-foolish policies that cannot survive close, rational scrutiny, particularly for anyone who purports to be serious about helping ex-offenders succeed upon reentry.

Texas quietly rescinded ban on food stamps for first-time drug offenders

The Houston Chronicle reported (Aug. 19) on a change in the law which received little publicity. Brian Rosenthal's story opened:

Texas soon will allow tens of thousands of residents convicted of drug crimes to receive food assistance from the federal government, joining almost every other state in ending a ban that once covered the entire nation.

Legislation approved during this year's legislative session will make Texas the 44th state to opt out of the ban, which former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, inserted into President Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform package.

Under the new policy, which takes effect Sept. 1, first-time drug felons will be able to get food stamps as long as they comply with the conditions of their parole and do not commit a second offense while receiving assistance. They still will be ineligible for cash help through welfare.

Residents convicted of non-drug-related felonies will continue to be able to get benefits, as they were never included in the ban.

The change could help many of the 56,860 Texas residents currently on Community Supervision for drug offenses, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and many more who already have cycled out of parole. It is unknown how many of them may seek food stamps, however.

Advocates hailed the move as a landmark reform for Texas, saying the scant attention it received during the session belied the transformative effect it could have on those most in need of help.

"It isn't about rewarding people convicted of crimes. It's about making sure that they do not become repeat offenders, and to do that, we need to give them some help," said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, who spearheaded the change via a standalone bill and then, after that failed, through an amendment to a noncontroversial bill. "This will give them an opportunity to regain respectability by going out into the marketplace and making a living."

The bit about "ending the ban" in Mr. Rosenthal's lede is a bit strong. The restriction of the change to a first offense will limit the new law's effectiveness. ("Diminished the ban," perhaps? "Inched away from a total ban"?) Texas may have formally opted out of a federal ban (hurrah! we're 44th!), but then the Legislature of its own accord retained it for a large class of drug offenders. Regardless, the new law will help some people and provide a floor to build on in coming sessions.

Exposing underbelly of privatized prison food

The Detroit Free Press has been publishing a terrific series of stories about Aramark, a private vendor of prison food and commissaries which has operated at several Texas jails. See:

• Four Aramark prison workers caught in sexual romp with inmates
• Aramark prison worker accused of smuggling in heroin, other drugs
• Aramark prison worker suspected in attempted hired hit
• Aramark contract at Oakland University hindered by prison infractions
• Michigan fines Aramark $200,000 more for poor prison food service
• Prisons director canceled $98,000 fine imposed on Aramark

See also related Grits coverage from last year: "Private food vendor allegedly skimped on portions, switched to substandard ingredients, billed for unserved food."

Surging toward Groundhog Day, and other stories

Here are a few items that deserve Grits readers' attention but haven't made it into independent posts:

Pointless 'surge': Waiting for the punchline
DPS' $1.3 million per week border surge IMO is a bad joke. Brandi Grissom must think it's Groundhog Day. How many "surges" have we witnessed in Texas since Operations Linebacker, Wrangler, etc.? What did they solve? And how will this one convince some teenager in Honduras not to begin the march northward fleeing oppression and poverty to come here for a job that Texas businesses want give him? The feds seem to have a more pragmatic response: bringing in emergency judges to process immigration cases. Maybe this would be a good time for the US Senate to fill some of Texas' empty federal judicial posts.

Eat This
A Tyler company admitted no guilt as it entered into a $392,000 settlement with the US Department of Agriculture after meat it sold as pet food wound up being fed to inmates at the federal Bureau of Prisons.

'Pregnant women in Texas county jails deserve better than this'
Horrific. From the Dallas News (June 26), "A federal lawsuit in Wichita Falls shines a spotlight on a dramatic example of how the opportunity for lifesaving medical intervention is often missed in county jails. In this case, a child was tragically lost." See the full, gut wrenching column coauthored by the Texas Jail Project's Diana Claitor and Burke Butler of the Texas Civil Rights Project.  

Arson and false convictions
As evidence that Texas' arson review has had national influence, check out this NBC piece on a Michigan man exonerated in an arson-murder case. It hails Texas as authoring "the most comprehensive overhaul of fire investigation in the nation" and holds up the state fire marshal's review of old cases as a model.

Weather litigation heating up with summer
The Dallas Observer has details from one of the lawsuits over excessive heat at Texas prisons focused on the Hutchins State Jail. Wrote Sky Chadde, "Larry McCollum's death received most of the press. McCollum was a 58-year-old Hutchins inmate -- in for a nonviolent crime -- who suffered a seizure after several 100-degree-plus days in a row. At the hospital, his body temp was 109.8 degrees. He fell into a coma and died six days later, from living in a place with high temperatures and no A/C. Lawyers from the Texas Civil Rights Project sued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs the state's prison system. That lawsuit is still playing itself out, but now the department has another one on its hands." The story noted at the end that, "Recently, the AP reported that the criminal justice department is hoping to make seven state prisons a little more bearable by using large fans, like those football teams use to cool down on game days."

FBI to TX: Give our informant a PI license
Eric Dexheimer at the Austin Statesman has the story of an FBI informant with impeccable references from his handlers who was nonetheless turned down for a private investigator license because of his criminal history.

Bad analogies and the Fourth Amendment
Here's hopeful assessment from Vox of the import of yesterday's SCOTUS decision that cell phones can't be searched incident to arrest. "The Supreme Court's new attitude is best summarized by a single sentence in the opinion. The government had argued that searching a cell phone is no different from searching other items in a suspect's pocket. That, the court wrote, 'is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.'" Much of the debate surrounding the Fourth Amendment in the 21st century hinges on bad analogies, the author argues.

Habeas corpus post-Guantanamo
The Stanford Law Review has a nice little summary of the effectuation of federal habeas corpus and due process rights in recent D.C.-circuit case law for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

There are also worthy, recent items at Texas Prison Bidness, Defending People, and The Defense Rests.

Private food vendor allegedly skimped on portions, switched to substandard ingredients, billed for unserved food

AP had a story last week (July 14) about a company called Aramark, a private food vendor specializing in correctional settings. The article opened:

A private vendor in line to begin feeding roughly 100,000 prison inmates in Ohio and Michigan has a track record of billing for food it doesn't serve, using substandard ingredients and riling prisoners with its meal offerings, past audits in several states show.

But some states say Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services has performed well.
The audits in Ohio, Florida and Kentucky found Aramark charged states for meals not served, changed recipes to substitute cheaper ingredients and sometimes skimped on portions.

A 2001 audit by then-Ohio Auditor Jim Petro found a verbal amendment to Aramark's two-year contract led the state prisons department to pay Aramark for serving almost 4.5 million meals rather than the 2.8 million meals it actually served. That added $2.1 million to the contract cost.

An internal audit by Florida's prisons department in 2007 concluded Aramark's practice of charging the state per inmate rather than per meal created "a windfall for the vendor" after a large number of inmates stopped showing up for meals, reducing company costs by $4.9 million a year. The review found the company was paid for some 6,000 meals a day that it didn't serve. Aramark stopped serving Florida's prison meals in 2009.

Kentucky's state auditor launched a review of Aramark in response to the 2009 prison riot at Northpoint Training Center sparked over food issues. Auditor Crit Luallen's 2010 report found Aramark overbilled the state by as much as $130,000 a year, charging for the meals of as many as 3,300 inmates that were shown through head counts not to be incarcerated.

Besides payments for unserved meals, the audits found Aramark sometimes substituted cheaper ingredients — receiving inmate-grown food against contract terms or substituting less expensive meat products, for example — without passing savings on to taxpayers. During an Ohio site visit, inspectors reported witnessing a "near riot" at breakfast when Aramark adhered strictly to its contractual portion sizes.

In general, states still saved money overall — the primary enticement behind the latest privatization efforts in Ohio and Michigan.

Grits had only heard of the company in passing before this story, but the blog Texas Prison Bidness pointed to a couple of Texas sites where Aramark has operated in the past. The company was accused of overcharging at the commissary at the Bexar County Jail in 2009 and in 2004 allegedly served unsafe food to inmates in Tarrant County. Offhand I can't think how to identify a current list of their clients without a whole lot of legwork, but according to their federal 10-K report (pdf) they have a number of Texas subsidiaries. Recently Aramark announced a major expansion/consolidation of their distribution facilities in Tennessee. Further, says the 10-K, ominously:

The Company is a party to various legal actions and investigations including, among others, employment matters, compliance with government regulations, including import and export controls and customs laws, federal and state employment laws, including wage and hour laws, immigration laws, human health and safety laws, dram shop laws, environmental laws, false claim statutes, minority business enterprise and women owned business enterprise statutes, contractual disputes and other matters, including matters arising in the ordinary course of business.

Even for a big company, that's quite a list of legal actions to be embroiled in at any given time. In addition to prisons and jails, Aramark serves "healthcare facilities, school districts, colleges and universities, sports, entertainment and recreational venues, conference and convention centers, [as well as] national and state parks," said its latest 10-K.

See a related item from Prison Legal News about Aramark and its lead competitors in the prison food privatization market, a parasitic grotesquery of a business model if there ever was one.

Kitchen culture behind bars

Several female inmates from TDCJ's Mountain View unit have published a prisoner cookbook describing methods for (sometimes illegally) cooking with commissary items. Interesting.

Thousands of Texas prisoners now "brunch" (before 7 a.m.) - weekend meals reduced at 36 units

The New York Times reported this week (Oct. 20) that:

Thousands of ... inmates in the Texas prison system have been eating fewer meals since April after officials stopped serving lunch on the weekends in some prisons as a way to cut food-service costs. About 23,000 inmates in 36 prisons are eating two meals a day on Saturdays and Sundays instead of three. A meal the system calls brunch is usually served between 5 and 7 a.m., followed by dinner between 4 and 6:30 p.m.

The meal reductions are part of an effort to trim $2.8 million in food-related expenses from the 2011 fiscal year budget of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the state prison agency. Other cuts the agency has made to its food service include replacing carton milk with powdered milk and using sliced bread instead of hamburger and hot dog buns.

Prison administrators said that the cuts were made in response to the state’s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall in 2011, and that the weekend lunches were eliminated in consultation with the agency’s health officials and dietitians. Michelle Lyons, an agency spokeswoman, said that inmates with health problems who have been prescribed a therapeutic diet continue to receive three meals per day. 

The Times' Manny Fernandez notes that these reductions actually began in April, during the last fiscal year. The cuts as a practical matter were even bigger than depicted in the Times article. Grits reported back in January that this line item was formally cut 13.5%, or more than $14 million, from 2009 levels (which IMO is the better point of comparison in a biennial budget). Still, this is the first story I've seen offering any detail on how implementation has directly impacted the quantity and quality of prisoner food. One imagines scaling back to two meals might also spur commissary sales, which through a jaundiced eye might look cynical after the Lege told TDCJ last spring to seize money in prisoner commissary accounts to pay for their healthcare and confiscated commissary profits for budget reduction that would have gone to "inmate recreational and educational materials."

It was a long, hot, un-air conditioned summer in most Texas prisons, with another one likely next year. Tack onto that rationing food and healthcare and reduced oversight of private facilities, and this issue joins the list of looming budget-related flashpoints before the Legislature meets again. That's especially true since, between weather and the commodities market, as Grits wrote when the budget cuts were announced, "food costs are rising, so that leaves reduced quantity or quality as the only real ways to save money on that line item - unless, of course, the state decides to simply reduce the total number of people it's feeding three times per day." Having failed to do that, front-line austerity in the prison cafeteria became inevitable. The question becomes, is it sustainable?

MORE: Best headline on this from CNN-Money, "Texas prisoners lose their lunch." AND MORE: At Texas Justice Dot Org.

Glucose levels affect parole board decisions

The New York Times this week had a story on decisionmaking that included a fascinating reference to a study of release decisions by the Israeli parole board, one that's almost certainly applicable here in Texas given the much vaster volume of cases considered:

There was a pattern to the parole board’s decisions, but it wasn’t related to the men’s ethnic backgrounds, crimes or sentences. It was all about timing, as researchers discovered by analyzing more than 1,100 decisions over the course of a year. Judges, who would hear the prisoners’ appeals and then get advice from the other members of the board, approved parole in about a third of the cases, but the probability of being paroled fluctuated wildly throughout the day. Prisoners who appeared early in the morning received parole about 70 percent of the time, while those who appeared late in the day were paroled less than 10 percent of the time. ...

The benefits of glucose were unmistakable in the study of the Israeli parole board. In midmorning, usually a little before 10:30, the parole board would take a break, and the judges would be served a sandwich and a piece of fruit. The prisoners who appeared just before the break had only about a 20 percent chance of getting parole, but the ones appearing right after had around a 65 percent chance. The odds dropped again as the morning wore on, and prisoners really didn’t want to appear just before lunch: the chance of getting parole at that time was only 10 percent. After lunch it soared up to 60 percent, but only briefly. Remember that Jewish Israeli prisoner who appeared at 3:10 p.m. and was denied parole from his sentence for assault? He had the misfortune of being the sixth case heard after lunch. But another Jewish Israeli prisoner serving the same sentence for the same crime was lucky enough to appear at 1:27 p.m., the first case after lunch, and he was rewarded with parole. It must have seemed to him like a fine example of the justice system at work, but it probably had more to do with the judge’s glucose levels.

There's plenty of debate over what criteria parole boards should use to make release decisions, but this study reminds us that rationality may not always be the main (or at least the only) driving factor behind who gets released, and when.

RELATED: Scott Medlock at the Texas Civil Rights Project emails to say, " If I recall correctly, there is an episode of The Simpsons where Marge bakes brownies for the parole board before they evaluate a prisoner she has taken a shine to, and, true to form, the board grants parole." Indeed he does recall correctly, though it was cookies, not brownies (macaroons, to be precise). Here's a synopsis of the relevant episode.

Would vegetarian prison meals reduce violence?

In India, prisoners are fed vegetarian meals for all but 4-9 meals per year (depending on whose estimate you accept), reports the Times of India. Reacting to a petition to increase meat options in prison diets, an Indian judge recently asked, "What is the logic behind this? There must be some scientific reason. Will prisoners become more violent if they have non-vegetarian food?" Good question, and quite frankly one that had never occurred to me.

What's the relationship between diet and aggression? Would prisons be less violent places if they served less meat? Or are there other nutritional changes that could influence offender behavior for the better?

It's not hard to find vegetarian activists who claim "meat eating promotes more aggressive behavior - a lack of gentleness in personality, and arrogance." Another common meme on the topic is that "in nature carnivorous animals are fierce and aggressive, while non-carnivorous ones are peaceful and sociable." Such declarations from holier-than-thou vegetarian activists are a dime a dozen and in general lack legitimate research to back up their claims. (After all, Adolf Hitler, the worst genocidal maniac in world history, was a vegetarian, showing that at best such stereotypes don't amount to a hard and fast rule.)

I was surprised, though, to learn how far back the idea that meat promotes aggression can be traced in Western thought. Plutarch argued there is an explicit trajectory from meat-eating to war and murder: "at the beginning it was some wild and harmful animal that was eaten, then a bird or fish that had its flesh torn. And so when our murderous instincts had tasted blood and grew practised on wild animals, they advanced to the labouring ox and the well-behaved sheep and the housewarding cock; thus, little by little giving a hard edge to our insatiable appetite, we have advanced to wars and the slaughter and murder of human beings."

 A much-cited quote attributed to the mathematician Pythagoras made the same claim: "For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."

And there are plenty of modern folk who believe there's a link between meat eating and aggression. Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong website suggests that, "People who rely on sugar and high-fat foods such as meat are more prone to violence and depression."

In the criminal justice system, Prison Legal News said recently that "reports of prisoner assaults increased dramatically" in Georgia after meals were scaled back to two per day. "Prison officials said the reduced diet was not the cause of the surge in violence, but offered no alternative explanation." In Kentucky two years ago, inmates orchestrated a violent prison riot over food so bad that one prison guard described it as "slop."

Whether meat per se is the issue or a lack of other healthy foods in prison diets, some studies have shown remarkable links between diet and inmate behavior. The UK-Guardian published a item several years ago about studies on prisoner diets, concluding that "violent behaviour may be attributable at least in part to nutritional deficiencies." The results of one landmark study were reported in this excerpt:

Aylesbury was at the time a prison for young male offenders, aged 17 to 21, convicted of the most serious crimes. Trevor Hussey was then deputy governor and remembers it being a tough environment. "It was a turbulent young population. They had problems with their anger. They were all crammed into a small place and even though it was well run you got a higher than normal number of assaults on staff and other prisoners."

Although the governor was keen on looking at the relationship between diet and crime, Hussey remembers being sceptical himself at the beginning of the study. The catering manager was good, and even though prisoners on the whole preferred white bread, meat and confectionery to their fruit and veg, the staff tried to encourage prisoners to eat healthily, so he didn't expect to see much of a result.

But quite quickly staff noticed a significant drop in the number of reported incidents of bad behaviour. "We'd just introduced a policy of 'earned privileges' so we thought it must be that rather than a few vitamins, but we used to joke 'maybe it's Bernard's pills'."

But when the trial finished it became clear that the drop in incidents of bad behaviour applied only to those on the supplements and not to those on the placebo.

The results, published in 2002, showed that those receiving the extra nutrients committed 37% fewer serious offences involving violence, and 26% fewer offences overall. Those on the placebos showed no change in their behaviour. Once the trial had finished the number of offences went up by the same amount. The office the researchers had used to administer nutrients was restored to a restraint room after they had left.

"The supplements improved the functioning of those prisoners. It was clearly something significant that can't be explained away. I was disappointed the results were not latched on to. We put a lot of effort into improving prisoners' chances of not coming back in, and you measure success in small doses."

That study did not indict meat per se but identified other deficiencies in prisoner diets - particularly low levels of Omega 3 (contained in fish oil) - that researchers believe contribute to aggression. In the US, reported the Guardian, "a clinical trial at the US government's National Institutes for Health, near Washington ... is investigating the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain" by giving violent offenders pills containing Omega-3 rich fish oils. Researcher Joseph Hibbeln who's in charge of the study believes we are all suffering:

from widespread diseases of deficiency. Just as vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, deficiency in the essential fats the brain needs and the nutrients needed to metabolise those fats is causing of a host of mental problems from depression to aggression. Not all experts agree, but if he is right, the consequences are as serious as they could be. The pandemic of violence in western societies may be related to what we eat or fail to eat. Junk food may not only be making us sick, but mad and bad too.

Which bring us to commissary food - the other main source of calories for inmates besides what's served in the prison cafeteria. Much of it is straight up junk food or else processed foods without a great deal of nutritional value. Chips and snacks along with assorted drinks (mostly soda and coffee), processed meat products and dry goods are the most commonly purchased items. I've long thought that it would considerably improve inmate health (and potentially reduce long-term healthcare costs) to provide healthier options at the commissary and limit the junk food available.

As the link between nutrition and behavior becomes more thoroughly understood, perhaps it might also make sense for prisons and potentially even jails and probation departments to provide education on nutrition and advice on preparing healthy meals. Indeed, since about half of prisoners are parents of minor-age children, doing so might well even benefit their offspring when offenders return home to their families.

A final thought here on a more pragmatic note: Whether or not meat causes aggression, vegetarian meals are substantially cheaper to prepare. As Grits reported this spring, Texas slashed funding for prisoner food in the next biennium by 13.5% from 2009 levels, though global food prices are rising and they still plan on feeding the same number of prisoners. (After the cuts, prisoners now will spend more per year at the commissary, mostly for food, than the state has budgeted to feed them.) Necessity being the mother of invention, might introducing more vegetarian meals help keep up the nutritional value of prison food while accommodating already-implemented budget cuts? I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. And who knows, maybe doing so would reduce violence and improve chances for rehabilitation, to boot.

Prison themed wine

If you were launching a vineyard and looking for ways to market your product, would you choose prison themes and imagery as your main selling point? For a few years now a vineyard out of California, located next door to the notorious Soledad prison unit, has operated as the Big House Wine Company, with product names like "Big House Red," "Unchained," "The Usual Suspect," "The Bird Man," and "The Slammer." They've got fun art on the labels and if your vineyard operates in the shadow of a famous prison I suppose I can understand the branding decision.

Anyway, last night we had a party at the house to celebrate the missus' birthday and afterward while cleaning up, I noticed one of our guests brought a vintage from "Chain Gang Vineyards" out of California called "First Timer," with a faux mugshot on the label no less. I found no website for the brand, but while searching I did run across something called Rockpile Vineyards in northern California. There, according to SanFranciscoWineTours.com, "Legend has it that the appellation's unusual name comes from the Rockpile Ranch, where Sheriff Tennessee Bishop would put prisoners to work building roads to his mountain home. It was the men on the chain gang who allegedly dubbed the place 'rockpile.'" One prison-themed vineyard may be an outlier; three perhaps signal a trend. Either way, kind of an odd marketing decision, doncha think?

There really is no such thing as a free lunch

Not in Lubbock, anyway. At least if you can't afford a commercial kitchen.

TDCJ reduced spending on prisoner food 13.5% since 2009

Here's a little-discussed budget cut that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has already implemented over the last couple of years which I was unaware of before seeing it in the recently released analyses of the proposed House and Senate Budgets (available from LBB):

Food for Persons - Wards of State:

Expended 2009: $106,601,431
Estimated 2010: $100,702,356
Budgeted 2011: $92,236,867

(Data from p. 552 of this enormous pdf)

If I'm reading these documents correctly, the 2011 "budgeted" amount (the current fiscal year) is the figure allocated after the agency was required to reduce its budget by state leadership last fall. In that preemptory move, TDCJ absorbed 15% of all state agency budget cuts totaling $75 million, and prisoners' food bill was apparently one source of savings. Alternatively, maybe the food money went to pay for un-budgeted security upgrades, drug testing of staff, or some of the other anti-contraband initiatives that seem to be implemented spontaneously every few months in reaction to each new crisis or negative revelation.

Texas prisons grow much of their own food, of course, but I'm aware of no upsurge in agricultural production that would explain this precipitous drop.

Whatever the case, for the upcoming biennium (2012-13), TDCJ requested a $5 million increase to $97.3 million per year to feed prisoners, but HB 1 gave them the same amount budgeted for 2011, and the Senate budget would spend just a few hundred thousand dollars more. Meanwhile, food costs are rising, so that leaves reduced quantity or quality as the only real ways to save money on that line item - unless, of course, the state decides to simply reduce the total number of people it's feeding three times per day.

TDCJ proposes 5% budget cuts

Though the agency requested an exemption from budget cuts, here's the proposal (pdf) the Texas Department of Criminal Justice submitted to state leadership yesterday regarding how it would cut 5% from its budget without closing any prison units - mostly by laying off more than 3,000 employees. I'll have more to say on this when I've had a chance to read it in more detail, but wanted to get the link out there. UPDATE: See initial coverage from AP, the Austin Statesman, and the Houston Chronicle.

The Texas Youth Commission was late with its submission but I'll add a link when it becomes available. UPDATE: Here's the link. See a brief description from Mike Ward at the Statesman, who reports:

Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon and the West Texas State School in Pyote, both slated to be closed in August, will instead would shut down April 2 to save about $3.5 million.
Six dorms at several youth prisons would be closed and a total of 138 jobs — some filled and some vacant — would be eliminated to save about $9 million. But officials cautioned in the budget-reduction plan that the dorm closures and layoffs could disrupt operations, and they requested an exemption to ensure that safety and security are maintained.
Staff vacancies would not be filled to save about $7.5 million.

UPDATE: Here's the plan for budget reductions (pdf) at the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Statesman has more.

AND MORE: Here are the proposed cuts (pdf) suggested at the Juvenile Probation Commission.

NUTHER UPDATE: I'll have a more complete analysis later, but here are the TDCJ budget items that stood out upon initial perusal of their proposed reductions (most of which they've suggested be waived):

• Firing 2,037 security staff
• Slash operational funds for food and fuel, assuming non constat that market prices won't fluctuate
  
• Slashing $42 million from mental health care
• Reduce the number of probation officers, parole officers and Hearing Officers at the Board of Pardons and Parole
• Cut direct funding to CSCDs for probation officers by $22 million
• Transfer "underutilized" or unspent treatment diversion funding, since as the programs rolled out, "utilization rates have been below appropriated levels." (The message here to judges and CSCD directors: Use it or lose it!)
• Eliminating energy and water conservation programs
  
• Divert $5 million in commissary profits currently used for inmate recreational and educational materials to budget reduction
• Delay opening long-term medical facility in Marlin
  
• Cuts to substance abuse treatment, intermediate sanctions facilities, treatment services, halfway houses, and the State Counsel for Offenders

Among possible cuts TDCJ alluded to but did not formally suggest: TDCJ has replacement contracts with several private facilities it's scheduled to renew in the next 12 months. But since the agency presently enjoys more than 2,300 empty beds, including private capacity (with numbers trending downward), perhaps those inmates should be absorbed into other units and some or all of those contracts be allowed to expire?

Otherwise, this is a very political document from TDCJ, cutting popular programs and suggesting large staffing cuts that make no sense from a security standpoint unless they actually close prisons. And yet, they suggest cutting everything but prisons, including programs that have helped reduce prison populations and saved the state hundreds of of millions in additional incarceration costs.

TDCJ is asking for an exemption from budget cuts, but I don't think that's necessary. Rather, since the agency is circling the wagons and suggesting only cuts that would harm public safety and cripple the agency operationally, the Lege will probably have to step in and set their priorities for them. This document is more ploy than plan - suggesting the unthinkable, ignoring more modest, reasonable potential cuts, then insisting the agency should not be required to share any budget-cut pain at all.