Prison Food Problems Continue

On April 30, 2017 the Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan's prison food service vendor, Trinity, was fined $2.1 million for service failures. This fine was the result of the MDOC's new 24-person service monitoring unit that costs the department $2.8 million to operate. Trinity is the food service vendor that replaced Aramark when they terminated their three-year contract with the MDOC early after repeated problems.

While I applaud the department's efforts to keep contracting services accountable for the services they agreed to provide, according to the Free Press the monitoring unit levied this fine because of such things as "unauthorized meal substitutions, delays in serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and sanitation issues, among other problems." These problems are serious enough to be addressed by the monitoring unit, but there are much greater problems with the service that Trinity provides.

Although Trinity is hardly the only prison food service provider to have these problems, Michigan's prisoners would like to see the MDOC address the issues of food quality and quantity. At the facility where I am housed, two inmates (I was one of them!) recently found larva or maggots in our spinach (about a week between incidents). In one case, Trinity staff acknowledged the problem but refused to remove the item from the serving line (this would have required a replacement). Officers who were made aware of the problem just shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. In the second incident both Trinity staff and officers responded quickly to remove the offending item from the line and documented the problem. But maggots are hardly the only problem with the quality of food being served to prisoners. The vegetables being served are often animal feed quality, not the sort fit for human consumption.

I don't think prisoners should expect to have gourmet quality food. It is prison after all. However, the State of Michigan does have a duty to ensure the food they are serving prisoners is eatable and provides the adequate nutrition necessary for a healthy diet. Yet, the very carb-heavy, low quality food is not only not nutritious, it is often so old or low quality that it may actually be harmful to our health.

Director Washington has taken a positive step in monitoring service providers and keeping them accountable; she should be commended. This action should save the State money for services not properly rendered. But who are the ones that end up suffering for these service shortages? It is the prisoners. I would suggest that if the problem directly affects prisoners, maybe the fine that is levied ought to be paid to the prisoners. Officers and administrators would hate that, so maybe they would do more to ensure compliance by the contracts at a facility level.