But isn’t it true that if you’re a vegetarian for a long time, your body can’t handle meat very well at all? Then a vegetarian diet would become a need and not just a choice.
So where is the line drawn? Dietary medical needs are obviously ok. Of course, they will not care if a prisioner doesn’t like carrots, but…
Obviously, if an inmate has (or develops) a medical condition that prevents him from eating a certain type of food, an alternative should be offered. However, religious belief is not a medical condition (aside from its being a mental disorder shared by many). If the Great Iguana, Booga Kabooga, orders you to not eat potatoes, then you can abstain to show your faith and fealty, but the prison authorities shouldn’t be forced to accommodate your beliefs by offering you a substitute. If they provide adequate, nutritious food, they’ve done their job.
That said, I’m convinced that they make the food as bland and unappetizing as possible, within the above restrictions, mostly in order to intensify the punishment meted out to the prisoners. They cite costs in this equation, but food that tastes halfway decent could be obtained and prepared on the cheap easily enough.
The basic principle of prison management is that incarceration itself is the punishment; we don’t seek to make prisoners miserable just for the sake of punishing them.
It’s more effective to give them reasonable accommodations. Letting them watch TV and play baseball and eat decent food keeps them quiet and manageable. The cost is actually pretty minimal - you’re dealing with economics of scale. The prison system runs its own food production facilities and it’s preparing thousands of identical meals. The average cost per person is under two dollars a day. And it’s not horrible food - one of my jobs was to eat sample meals.
The same thing happens in New York only it’s Judaism prisoners convert to. Because of the restrictions on kosher food preparation, the state finds it’s cheaper to buy pre-made kosher meals than set up kitchens to prepare them. So prisoners who “convert” get meals made by outside venders.
Well, I would describe my mother’s cooking as “not horrible,” but nonetheless would consider feeding her food to anyone to be abusive.
I agree that the professed principles of prison management are that the prisoner should be treated humanely, but that’s not the case in the vast majority of prisons, if for no other reason than overcrowding. And the sharply elevated chances of getting beat up/stabbed/raped/murdered force an inmate to choose between running the gauntlet every day, joining a gang, or opting for mind-destroying “protective isolation.”
The truth is that prison is hell on earth, and that the authorities long ago abandoned the idea of “rehabilitation.” Visit any prison (I have, several times), and you’ll see that the vast majority of the procedures and infrastructures are in place to keep the staff safe from the inmates, not to keep the inmates safe from each other or to make the inmates’ lives tolerable.
I’ve long though there should be a blessing for the soft margarine for the matzoh.
I can’t tell from your wording if you’re aware of this or not- For Ashkenazic Jews, corn products (like the corn oil in margarine) are forbidden for Passover.
Back To The Op
I believe the goal of prison should be to rehabilitate. OTTOMH Victorian England tried its best to turn prison into a thoroughly miserable soul-crushing experience. It didn’t seem to cut down on crime or save the state money.
RE Allergies
AFAIK The state takes responsibility for inmates medical needs. Allergies etc are certainly a medical need. I have no problem with an above suggestion that these dietary restrictions are enforced.
Re Religion
I don’t find the ‘if they really followed and believed in their faith, then they wouldn’t have offended’ argument convincing. Every religion I know of admits that humans are flawed and make mistakes. Additionally, it’s entirely possible that an inmate finds faith after being incarcerated. Finally, feeding everybody pork (for example) provides a meal that Jews and Muslims cannot eat. This puts the state into the business of discriminating against inmates due to their religion.
Finally, there needs to be a way to punish inmates who break rules or laws while in prison. If we make things as miserable as possible, inmates have nothing to lose and no reason to behave.
Pretty sure my experience on this subject is more extensive than yours.
Besides which, the basic stricture of Islam is that “non halal” if that is all that is available, is perfectly ok.
For reals? I never knew that. What is the theory of forbidding corn on Passover?
Let’s avoid turning this into a religious debate. If you want to make comments like that and debate them, make a thread either in Great Debates or the Pit, but keep these type of comments out of this thread so it’s not hijacked with a debate over religion.
Since religious beliefs as they apply to diet have been mentioned several times, the comment was valid. If a prisoner’s professed beliefs about various and sundry imaginary deities say that a particular type of food must be given the prisoner, must prison authorities respect those beliefs and preferences? To state it another way, we certainly wouldn’t feed an inmate nothing but pizza because he expressed a strong preference for that food, so why should a religiously-based preference be treated any differently?
Your body should re-adapt after a while, maybe with some initial discomfort. That’s not really a “need”, just discomfort.
I agree that this should not be a religious rant against prisoners, but doesn’t or shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime? If you’re kosher and you killed your wife for cheating, sure, let them remain kosher. But if you set off an IED in a train station for “religious reasons”, it’s burgers or nothing. 
Allergies, digestive concerns, etc., should be taken into concern if there is a true physical ailment associated with foods. I don’t think anyone with a peanut allergy should be given a Snickers, but foods with high cholesterol shouldn’t be a debate for a 20 year old who car-jacked and killed unless there is a physical risk to a specific prisoner.
I had held off in replying to this thread to help sort out how I feel about this issue. First I feel it is immoral to punish another person, punishment is evil, so such action as imprisoning someone should be for rehabilitation only.
Those convicts are wards of the state, the state has taken responsibility for their well being, to which they are morally accountable.
With that some variety of food should be offered, and reasonable requests honored, as well as health issues that require a special diet, and I do not see any issue in having the variety offered along religious guidelines, but that said it should not be restricted to those religions, but open to anyone. People should not be forced to convert to be able to get better food as that is cooersive and immoral.
How can that be done? Not sure, but hospitals and public schools have found it to be a workable solution.
Doc Cathode:
True, but there is Kosher-for-Passover margarine, made from oils that are not corn-based. I think cottonseed oil is the main type used in it, but I’m not 100% certain of that.
Senegoid:
Because products made from it are so similar to those made from the grains that can become leavened (wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt) that people might get confused and eat something genuinely forbidden; and also at one time it was common practice for grains (of the above-mentioned five grains) to be stored with corn and other grains that aren’t forbidden by Torah law on Passover (e.g., rice, millet, legumes), so there is worry that some mixing might have occurred.
So what should be done to, or for, first degree murderers, child molestors, and the like?
Desert Dumpster:
Because the constitution guarantees the right to free exercise of religion. If the state forces a Jew to eat non-Kosher, that’s a violation of his rights (and unlike certain other constitutional provisions, there is not a clause in that one allowing it to be taken away through due process).
kanicbird already answered: he thinks the purpose should be rehabilitation, not punishment.
Vegan/vegetarian can be a religious restriction, I had a coworker who was Brahmin and it’s a miracle he didn’t starve given the offerings in the cafeteria.
When we visited Alcatraz, we got the kids posters for their rooms, so they wouldn’t forget!
