$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.

1. I think almost everyone across the political spectrum agrees that prisoners need not be served filet mignon. What bothers me is not the day old bread and bargain basement veggies. It’s that the sheriffs are getting to line their pockets. You are encouraging the sheriffs to cut every possible corner without resulting savings for the taxpayers. If I were an Alabama taxpayer, I would much prefer that they had a statewide system, pooling the orders, to get the maximum efficiency for the money.

   Posted by on May 17, 2008 at 2246 hrs




2. F- the prisoners.  If you’re at that level you get what you deserve.  Crap!  I can go to a fast food joint and get a $0.99 burger and a soda for less than $1.75. 

   If your criminally inclined then I can see why you would be concerned about the prisoner.

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 0027 hrs




3. It’s that the sheriffs are getting to line their pockets. You are encouraging the sheriffs to cut every possible corner without resulting savings for the taxpayers. If I were an Alabama taxpayer, I would much prefer that they had a statewide system, pooling the orders, to get the maximum efficiency for the money.

   Yeah, I read about this the other day.  Its an interesting story:

   FIRST, it PROVES that when government departments, department heads, etc cry and complain that they “need mroe money” the reality is that they could do more with less, but it is just ALWAYS easier to go rapping on the door of the taxpayer for more money than put effort into being more efficient.

   So in that regard, giving the sherrifs icentive allows us to “really” see what could be done for that amount of money.

   There is NO accountability in government.  If it wasn’t for the profit motive among these sheriffs I guarantee they’d have food budgets of 20 times what they do now.

   Prison is for people who broke the law. It is shouldn’t be pleasant. I am not talking about abusing prisoners here.

   I agree.  but I’ll take it a step further.

   First, looking at our prison system we need to stop incarcerating people who don’t commit a crime against another person.  Sorry big government… This means the “war on drugs” which is really just a main-line-siphon of taxpayer dollars for a whole lot of government creating a problem and then spending money to try to fix the problem they created in the first place.  Its a vicious cycle that just sucks taxpayer dollars.

   As I’ve said before.  We can’t keep cocaine out of Lindsey Lohans nose.  How the fuck are we going to keep it out of every other place in the country.

   People who go to jail should be people who violate ANOTHER persons rights. 

   There is no such thing as a “debt to society” then.  There is a debt to your VICTIM!

   My system:

   Every crime would have restitution.  You don’t go to jail for X number of years, Because that’s a joke.  It just costs taxpayer dollars.

   You commit a crime against another person and the judge decides what that person owes their victim.  You go to prison where you WORK in a productive capacity to repay your debt to your victim.  When that debt is repayed (and you’d also be paying for your costs of incarceration with your labor) you get out.

   Crimes like murder… You go to jail for life and must work in a productive capacity to send every dollar you earn to the family of your victim.  You don’t work, you don’t eat.  Cruel and unusual.. No… The rest of the world has to get up every day and work to eat.  A murder in prison can do the same.

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 0036 hrs




4. $1.75 a day?  I could feed myself on $1.75 a day, if I had to.  It wouldn’t be pleasant and buying in bulk and buying day or 2 old bread, it can be done.  plus getting discarded veggies and fruit from the local Wal Mart or Pick N Save and it can be done easily. 
   But it is not supposed to be pleasant, so what the hell.

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 1220 hrs




5. I tell you, Alabama is turning to the socialists from the University down there more and more every day!

   It’s easy to fill up on $1.75/day. BURGER KING!

   But the commies want the prisoners to live like kings.

   What they aught to do is bring back capital punishment. Now the ACLJOO gets all of the criminals off scott free, saying they did the crime cuz they was dropped on their head when they was a baby...BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!...dragging everything to the point where you can’t even tell if you still got capital punishment in Alabama or not.

   Next door, in Mississippi, the ACLJOO/athiests won a big election in Congress, so now they think they can pull their weight around in Alabama.

   I DON’T THINK that’s gonna happen.

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 1939 hrs




6. "ACLJOO” as written by Parker, is an anti-semitic play on “ACLU”, favored by white supremacists. Owen, is B&S;going to play host to this kind of stuff?

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 2053 hrs




7. "Parker” has decided to post on a string of posts.  As far as I can tell, he’s playing the part of a caricature of a Conservative.  The fact that he’s posting from UW-Madison only enforces my belief. 

   As for playing host… Except for extraordinary circumstances, we don’t moderate comments - no matter how idiotic they are.  I trust the readers of B&S;to take Parker’s comments for what they are - moronic rantings.

   Posted by Owen on May 18, 2008 at 2059 hrs




8. wbman,

   joo is internet slang for ‘you’, a play on words.

   go cry to your liberal minister, liberal freak!

   what does ‘wbman’ stand for--you wannabeaman?

   Posted by on May 18, 2008 at 2109 hrs




9. I have a question for all of you that think that the day old bread, the crappy veggies, and the watered-down milk is a good idea: 

   How many of you would be willing to go to work and be locked up with these angry, pissed-off, and hungry crooks, when they outnumber you about 60 to 1, and all you have to protect yourself is your walkie-talkie.  You can even get paid like $14 per hour, no bathroom breaks, and no set lunch break?

   Unless you have worked in corrections, you are proving yourselves a bunch of goofs without a clue.

   Posted by capper on May 18, 2008 at 2220 hrs




10. And for those who want to feed them fast food, I’d recommend you go see Super Size Me, a film in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonalds food every day for 30 days. His liver nearly quit functioning and he became dangerously unhealthy.

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 0913 hrs




11. Unless you have worked in corrections, you are proving yourselves a bunch of goofs without a clue.

    You’re right capper… If happy prisoners is what you want, then all-righty, happy prisoners is what you shall get.  Anything to make your job easier.  That’s what we are hear for.

    Shall we supply them with free Marijuana too?  I’d think everyone sitting around smoking the peace pipe and they’d be less apt to get squirrely on you.

    While we are at it, lets give them Hi-Def tv’s and every channel.  Wouldn’t want them to get bored and agitate them.

    You liberals are unbelievable.  You never cease to amaze me with all the angles you can come up with to justify spending more taxpayer money.

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 0937 hrs




12. edit:  yeah, I can spell, mean to say “what we are here for”

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 0939 hrs




13. Dan is right. 

    You could probably feed all the prisoners in Wisconsin for less than 50 cents a day.  All of the food that grocery stores throw out at the end of the day should be rounded up and fed to prisoners. 

    Have you ever seen Pick n Save clear out their hot case at the end of the day?  They should be charged with a crime for the amount of food they throw away.

    Prisons should not be pleasant places and they should provide the cheapest food available, but it is wrong for a state to provide an incentive for Sheriffs to withold proper nutrition.  An inadequate diet should qualify as cruel punishment.

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 0942 hrs




14. I did a quick search to find out how much we spend on prison food.  I came across this interesting comparison (from MN and WI Department of Corrections statistics).

    Department of Corrections budget is one of the largest of all state agencies. Wisconsin currently spends over $1 billion a year to hold over 21,000 people in state prisons[1]. In contrast, nearby Minnesota, which shares similar popular demographics[2] and comparable crime rates[3] to Wisconsin, spends under $370 million to hold 8,000 people in state prisons[4].

    We aren’t wasting too much money feeding our prisoners, we are wasting too much money keeping too many people in prison for minor drug offenses.  (I apologize for sidetracking the thread).

    If we have 21,000 prisoners and spend $3.33 per day to feed them that works out to more than 25 million dollars per year.  We should find a way to reduce the amount of money we spend on prison food, but the bigger problem is the sheer number of mouths we have to feed behind bars.

    I amend my comment above; Pick N Save probably doesn’t throw out enough chicken wings and potato wedges to feed 21,000 people every day.

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 0957 hrs




15. What disturbs me is the sheriffs are lining their pockets with the money.  The extra is not even supplementing the jail budgets, but adding to their take home pay.

    Posted by on May 19, 2008 at 1130 hrs




16. Easy to fix. have the state pay for it all, and require the Warden/Sheriff and the guards to eat the same food while on shift.

    If someone is on some kind of punishment detail, put the meal through a blender first.

    Posted by Kristopher on May 19, 2008 at 1141 hrs




17. xxpilot-

    No where did I advocate coddling the prisoners, but it has been well proven that the leadest cause of prison riots is insufficient and/or lousy food.  Or do you like to take the saving from serving crappy food, and blow that and then some, on paying workman’s comp claims and paying out lawsuits?

    Posted by capper on May 20, 2008 at 0741 hrs




18. but it has been well proven that the leadest cause of prison riots is insufficient and/or lousy food.

    “well proven?” By who? The Capper Institute of Prison Research.

    All sarcasm aside… I don’t see any evidence in the article that prisoners in jail in Alabama are not well fed.  10 minutes of research on google could not corroborate your suggestion that poor food was the cause of prison riots on any level.

    Over-crowding, racial tensions, guard brutality all occurred more frequently in articles regarding prison riots.

    Having said that how do you ‘really’ determine the cause of a riot?  By what prisoners say? 

    I will be frank and say that I believe the major cause of prison riots is the fact that you’ve got a whole bunch of people called “violent criminals” who have proven by past behavior that lack the inhibition to behave themselves like civilized human beings.

    But as far as this article, and Alabama I see NO evidence anywhere to suggest the prisoners are under-fed or that there are riots as a result in Alabama in the prisons. 

    Furthermore if your supposition were true (that a $1.75 would lead to inadequacy in nutrition) then wouldn’t Alabama have a statistically significantly higher incidence of prison riots?  I don’t see any evidence that is the case.  I don’t see any evidence that indicates prisoners are not being properly fed.

    So I’ll reaffirm my opinion that you are simply a liberal who has an incessant proclivity to:  justify more government expenditures any way you can and cry foul whenever there is more evidence and a demonstration of just how much waste and lack of accountability there is in government.

    This of course leaves the issue of wether sherrifs should be able to make a profit on food rations which is an entirely separate issue.

    It probably burns the anti-capitalists out there that “profit” may not be the noblest of motives but given the absence of heavenly angels here on earth to run government, head up companies, or otherwise distribute wealth around the continent, “profit” and free enterprise remains the best, most efficient, and most efficacious way to a self-regulate commerce.

    Profit is an incentive like no other to provide a true litmus test of just how ‘well’ something can be done.

    When you think someone can’t work any faster, or get by with any less, introduce the incentive and opportunity for profit and you’ll be amazed at all the fat that gets squeezed out where people went crying to the ends of the earth that none existed.

    Posted by on May 20, 2008 at 0945 hrs