$1.75 A Day

Is this a bad thing?

Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over.

More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries. But exactly how much is something of a mystery because state auditors do not have access to sheriffs’ private accounts.

How could anyone turn a profit feeding men and women for an entire day on less than the price of a Coke and a bag of Fritos? Sheriffs practice Depression-style frugality and rely on such things as day-old bread, cut-rate vegetables and cheap inmate labor.

Critics charge that Alabama is, in effect, paying law enforcement to skimp on food and may be rewarding sheriffs for mistreating prisoners.

“It’s a bad system, and it ought not be that way,” said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.

A prisoner advocate said he constantly hears complaints about jail food.

“Most of it is like powdered food, and the portions are minimal in the county jails,” said the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, who visits Alabama jails to register prisoners to vote.

[...]

They noted, too, that it’s not all gravy for them: The system makes them personally liable for budget shortfalls and, possibly, lawsuits over jail food.

I’m with Firearms & Freedom on this one.

Prison is for people who broke the law. It is shouldn’t be pleasant. I am not talking about abusing prisoners here. Taking some measures to cut prison costs at the cost of feeding prisoners day old bread and less than prime veggies cooked by other prisoners at prison wages sounds like something more states need to try.

UPDATE: Compare this to Wisconsin’s cost.

Food costs for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections have jumped about 12% to $1.11 per meal so far in 2008, said Earl Fischer, administrator for the department’s division of management services.

Wisconsin is spending $3.33 per inmate.