Dietary Trickery in Prisons

In a video on Slate V taken at the 2007 Correctional Food Conference, an employee staffing the Sweet Pickins booth pushes frozen peas and crinkle-cut carrots imported from China to prison staff attendees. He explains that the correctional system can feed one prisoner three meals for just $2.25 a day. Down the trade show aisle at the Singlesource booth, a woman wholesales the company’s breaded chicken thigh meat for only $.59/pound. As seasoned sales representative, she explains the psychological benefits to their product. “When you give an inmate a four-ounce portion on his tray, it looks like a lot of product. Inmates are really pleased with that because they feel as though they’re getting a large portion of food.” That four-ounce portion costs the prison system a mere fifteen cents.

Though maximizing profit might be the foundation for the correctional food system, there is hope that prisoners might find rehabilitation through a healthier sentence. Dr. John Stein, professor of neuroscience at Oxford University, believes it can be found in nutrition. His research focuses on prison diets rich with minerals, vitamins, and fatty acids, proving that healthier food aids brain function and can lead to better prison behavior. His study with Natural Justice, a UK charity whose mission is to use nutrition to determine if it shapes social behavior in prisons and the community, observed 231 inmates at a British prison. One group took a capsule with the official daily requirements of minerals, vitamins, and fatty acids (i.e. omega-3s) while the other group took a placebo. Results showed that in those prisoners who took the added nutrients, violent offenses were down 37 percent with almost 26 percent less offenses overall.

In a new study to begin in May 2008, Dr. Stein and researchers will look at specific nutrients and their dosage. Using volunteers aged sixteen to twenty-one from three separate institutions, they will monitor how levels of nutrients might affect their incidents of violence, drug-related offenses, and self-harm. Through blood samples, Stein believes they’ll find a connection between impulsive behavior and variability in heart rates, which when monitored, can lead to individual control over negative actions.