What’s wrong with the way Pennsylvania Department of Corrections feeds its 39,000 inmates?

Even as Pennsylvania’s prison population grew rapidly in the 1990s and sentences became longer, the state’s food bill was plummeting. By 2018, the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) had one of the steepest drops in carceral food costs in the nation.

A report released earlier this month from the Pennsylvania Prison Society, ”Hungry and Malnourished in Prison Food Service in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections,” explained that the drop in cost was built on using poor quality food that often failed to meet inmates’ basic nutritional needs and left them hungry, malnourished, prone to diet-related illnesses, and dissatisfied.

“I can tell that in 2023 and 2024 there were simply not enough calories and what calories there were relied on starchy filler.”

After analyzing the Department of Corrections’ master menus for a year, Prison Society executive director Claire Shubik-Richards called the culinary nightmare faced by about 39,000 inmates in the state’s 24 prisons “nutritional neglect.”

“I can tell you that in 2023 and 2024 there were simply not enough calories [for inmates] and what calories there were relied on starchy filler,” Shubik-Richards said.

The DOC has both challenged and acted upon the Prison Society findings.

Corrections Secretary Laurel R. Harry, head of the $3 billion agency, questioned that the Prison Society survey sampled only three prisons and had fewer than 500 respondents. “The DOC has also met with the Pennsylvania Prison Society on this issue, and while DOC appreciates PPS taking the time to visit 3 of our 24 institutions, it is important to note their report only surveyed 1.5% of the current population.”

The Prison Society routinely fields hundreds of complaints a week about prison life, but when the pandemic required inmates be served meals in their cells to halt the spread of COVID-19, the number of food-related complaints increased drastically.

A 2021 Prison Society survey showed almost three out of four inmates admitted to receiving rotten food and smaller portions. Others said that dishes sat out for hours before being served and that when there was a hot food item on the menu it often arrived cold — a violation of the DOC’s food safety policy. Less than a third said they preferred in-cell dining but it was because that was better than dealing with mealtime dining hall issues.

Shubik-Richards said they then received a grant from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which allowed them to hire a registered dietician with experience in institutional food to evaluate the DOC’s food service and make recommendations for improvements.

The Brennan Center for Justice said mass incarceration actually means the “U.S. incarcerates more people than any nation in the world.” In 1980, the total U.S. prison population was 329,00. By the 1990s, prison populations had exploded, but so, too, did states’ food costs. Pennsylvania’s prisons, which now provide 41.5 million meals a year, cut food costs sharply.

Using 2023 dollar figures, according to the Prison Society, the daily spending on food per inmate in 1996 was $11.09 and in 2023 was $5.08.

Ivy Johnson, an outreach coordinator and community responder for the re-entry support organization Why Not Prosper, experienced the state’s declining food quality and quantity.

She entered State Correctional Institution (SCI) Muncy, located 15 minutes from Williamsport, in 1998 and remained there a little more than 18 years. While there, she was served almost 20,000 prison meals at the very time the state was drastically cutting its food costs.

“When I first got there, we would have meat for breakfast — bacon or sausage,” Johnson said. That was one of the first things she recalled disappearing. “The food was better. It was better prepared and initially it looked like what the [menu] said it was,” Johnson said, adding that gradually the food got “worse and there was less of it.”

The availability of fresh fruits and vegetables declined, and she stopped being able to identify the food by its smell.

The portions on her tray grew to be unrecognizable. Johnson said that if she wanted raw vegetables, such as peppers, lettuce and onions, or chicken instead of “mystery meat” patties, she had to purchase it on the prison’s black market — risking punitive action.

An effort to keep kosher as she converted to Judaism resulted in anemia so serious that the prison doctor told her to stop.

“People think that you commit a crime so you get what you get. But my sentence was not death. And even if it was, it was not death by starvation or malnourishment,” Johnson said.

When asked about the state of hot, healthy nutritious meals, Harry told legislators at the DOC’s February budget hearing that the agency had hired an additional dietician, bringing the total to two, and were undertaking a $3 million menu refresh, the agency’s first in two years. The nutritional goals of the menu refresh are to increase access to fresh fruit, fiber, dairy options, whole grains, and legumes while decreasing the amount of processed carbohydrates.

“Prison culture which by its every nature is an oppressive, dehumanizing place. Food can play into that or food can be a little respite of humanity.”

“That doesn’t come without a price tag,” Harry also told legislators.

”We have been having conversations about our food for quite some time and also talked to the Prison Society because we know it was an issue for them, as well. We had a meeting and looked at where we need to make improvements.”

Shubik-Richards said that “the crux of their report was looking at calories and nutrition and where the DOC was not making federal guidelines.” Although the DOC is doing better, Shubik-Richards said improvement was still needed, including fully meeting the caloric levels recommended for men.

“Prison ... by its very nature is an oppressive, dehumanizing place. Food can play into that or food can be a little respite of humanity,” Shubik-Richards said.

» READ MORE: Sharing meals brings families together, even in prison. Doing without has strained ties.