Sunday, January 16, 2000
Food loaf builds model prisoners
York's county jail is serving a square meal that seems to improve behavior
By LAURI LEBO
Dispatch/Sunday News
The latest culinary program at York County Prison may have some prisoners complaining, but county officials are saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and water.
It's called food loaf -- the new disciplinary tool at the prison.
However, you won't find it on the regular menu. Rather, it's an a la carte item available to only a select few since early December.
Food loaf is not exactly an entree, nor is it a side dish. Rather, it's a whole meal in one, and officials say it's working.
"It does have a deterrent effect," Hogan said. "People get tired eating food loaf."
The concept of food loaf is simple.
Whatever is on the menu that day -- let's say turkey, mashed potatoes and carrots -- is ground up together, shaped into a loaf and baked.
"Sometimes we have to add a little something (typically corn bread mix) to it to bind it together," Hogan said.
In response to some New Year's Eve shenanigans, in which a group of prisoners threw food and other items out of their cells, Hogan put 35 to 40 people on "punitive segregation" and food loaf for about seven days.
"If you act like a juvenile, we're going to treat you like a juvenile," Hogan said.
Guards hand the food loaf unceremoniously through a slot in the cell door to the prisoners. No plates or utensils come with it, giving the prisoners fewer items to throw.
The approximately 5-by-5-inch loaf is served three times a day, washed down with water, until either the disciplinary board or Hogan decides the punishment is enough.
One guard said that prisoners held in the "behavioral adjustment unit" used to count down the number of days, now they count down the number of food loafs.
The guards like it because when prisoners throw it at them clean up is a lot easier.
"The basic concept is obviously to keep them from being disruptive," Hogan said.
But some prisoners at York County Prison aren't happy with the new culinary program.
They describe the food loaf as, essentially, an assault on their palate.
Twice since New Year's, The York Dispatch/Sunday News has received letters from prisoners complaining about the new epicurean offerings on the prison menu.
In a letter sent by one of the criminal immigration prisoners, Jean Samedy, he wrote, "We are being fed ice-cold corn for breakfast, lunch and dinner, just plain corn bread.
"The laws require for all inmates to get three hot meals a day and we haven't had one for the past seven days."
Accused bank and beauty salon robber Howard Poteet also wrote Jan. 2, saying he was growing weak because he was unable to eat the food loaf.
"It's only been two days without food, yet I feel weak. I've got a terrible headache and I'm hungry.
"I tried to eat this loaf, yet the taste and texture of it makes it uneatable (sic)."
Actually, food loaf is not that bad. It's not that great either.
A little gummy, a little cloyingly sweet, perhaps, but all in all, it tastes like a heavy lemon corn muffin.
Meat (undetermined), peas and rice appeared in the loaf sampled last week.
Donna Hudelson, the Dispatch food editor, in her review, says about food loaf, "I've paid good money in restaurants for cornbread and muffins that tasted worse, but as a steady diet, food loaf wouldn't be a delight."
Because it's the same food as on the dietitian-prepared menu, the prisoners under discipline are still meeting their nutritional requirements, officials say.
David Craun, the county solicitor, said his office looked at Hogan's proposal and didn't see it as a problem.
"We looked at whether it could be challenged as cruel and unusual punishment, and research showed us that as long as the nutritional requirements are met, a food did not rise to cruel and unusual punishment."
Craun, who admits to packing his lunches in high school to avoid the cafeteria food, says he "probably wouldn't enjoy food loaf, especially without being able to put on any condiments on it."
But he says the pastries served at prison board meetings, baked in house and made from scratch, are quite tasty.
"I'm sure no court of law would find this unconstitutional," said Stefan Presser, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union.
"It's in direct response to a prisoner's misuse of food."
Hogan said he got the idea from hearing about its use at other prisons, he said.
Adams County Prison doesn't make food loaf, but that doesn't mean the warden doesn't like the concept.
"Personally, I think it's a great idea," said Warden Tom Duran.
Adams County doesn't have food loaf because meals are prepared by an outside caterer. Rather they use a sack lunch, which consists of a sandwich.
"Usually it's used for disciplinary problems and disciplinary problems have a habit of throwing their food," Duran said. "If they throw their food, then we're justified in doing something with their food."
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