Vt. Inmates Call Food Foul, Sue Over It

[Z06 Rocket]

What a crock. I think this is a tremendous waste of tax payer money. The inmates are BEING PUNISHED! They are not at summer camp. They should not be able to complain. In my opinion 24 hr lock down with bread and water would suffice. If you don't like the prison, don't commit crimes!!!!


By WILSON RING
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- When shooting suspect Christopher Williams acted up in prison, he was given nutraloaf _ a mixture of cubed whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes.

Prison officials call it a complete meal. Inmates say it's so awful they'd rather go hungry.

On Monday, the Vermont Supreme Court will hear arguments in a class action suit brought by inmates who say it's not food but punishment and that anyone subjected to it should get a formal disciplinary process first.

Prison officials see nutraloaf as a tool for behavior modification.

"It's commonplace in other states as a way of providing nutrition in a mechanism that dissuades inmates from throwing feces, urine, trays and silverware," said Vermont Corrections Commissioner Rob Hofmann.

"It tends to have the desired outcome," Hofmann said. "Once the offender relents, we stop with the nutraloaf. That's our goal, to protect our staff and not have them subjected to behavior that the average Vermonter would find incomprehensible."

Seth Lipschutz, an attorney with Vermont's Prisoner's Rights office, says the state has a legitimate interest in changing the behavior of inmates who misbehave.

But he says a diet of nutraloaf is punishment, plain and simple. To call it anything else is "playing with words to get what they want. It's wrong and it's sad," Lipschutz said.

"If it's punishment, you've got to follow the rules," Lipschutz said. "Even in prison you get a little bit of due process."

Even Hofmann doesn't care for the taste of the stuff. "It reminded me of eating my vegetables and I'm not necessarily a big fan of vegetables," he said.

Nutraloaf and its equivalents have been used for decades in prisons across the country. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a concoction used in Arkansas known as "'grue' might be tolerable for a few days and intolerably cruel for weeks or months."

A federal judge ruled in 1988 that the use of nutraloaf by the Michigan Department of Corrections was punishment.

Now, Michigan inmates are only given nutraloaf after going through the disciplinary process that lands them in segregation, department spokesman Russ Marlan said.

"It's done very infrequently, but it seems to accomplish its goal of preventing prisoners from using or abusing food or their containers in a way that could adversely affect our staff," Marlan said.

The National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union gets occasional inmate complaints about nutraloaf, but the issue hasn't been involved in the group's litigation in years.

"Our position is that it shouldn't be used unless a violation has to do with food. It shouldn't be used as punishment," said the Prison Project's Public Policy Coordinator Jody Kent. "And even in those circumstances, they have to make sure it won't put at risk their health."

Vermont Assistant Attorney General Kurt Kuehl, who will argue the case for the Department of Corrections, said the use of nutraloaf isn't punishment.

Instead, Kuehl said, it's as if a correctional officer were to find an inmate with a knife. He wouldn't have to hold a hearing to take the knife away.

"It's taking an administrative action to protect the facility," said Kuehl.

Afterward, the inmate can be subject to a separate disciplinary hearing for the conduct that led to being fed nutraloaf.

Most Vermont inmates given nutraloaf have used their eating utensils to throw body waste. Nutraloaf, however, is served on a simple piece of paper, removing from the inmate's reach the utensils that can be used to store the waste before it is thrown.

Hofmann said Vermont prisons average about one nutraloaf episode a month.

Christopher Williams, 29, who is charged in a 2006 school shooting that killed two people in Essex, was given nutraloaf after he'd assaulted guards and smeared excrement in his cell.

Since then, his name hasn't appeared on the list of inmates given nutraloaf.

"His name was nowhere to be found," Hofmann said. "I presume it was effective."

[LS2POWA]

I don't believe in prisons period. If someone was sentenced to jail for the death of an innocent person, then kill'em on the spot.

And i couldn't agree more, "its punishment for making us eat this". I would skip the 24hr lock down and just throw everyone in solitary confinement with their bread an water.

If the state of vermont actually does away with this behavior treatment, and i was one of the prison guards, id go on strike and let the prison attorneys come in and take care of them, see how long till they think what they do now is best for complete scum.

[coolassbrad]

well I can agree with the inmates we might as wel feed them steak and lobster every week.LOOK AT THE MONEY WERE PISSING AWAY OM IMIGRANTS AND FEEDING THESE FRIGGIN IRAQUIE SOBS.We continue to pump money into other countries to help them out while our own economy goes to ****,We should take the friggin oil and whatever else we need while were there,give their govt. a bill.We saved your asses you owe us X amount.We lost X trrop you owe their families X amount.And by the way get your asses to working 3 shifts at the refineries,and were gonna pay you $40.00 a barrell for our oil until this debit is paid in full.
Sorry to sound like a prick but this country is going to hell fast I'm spending over $150 a week for my delivery truck,last week I had 2 different people ask for gas money a stations.

[vett boy]

VT. is a strange state.The prisoners have a good chance of winning.

Nice place to visit but wouldn't like to live there.

[Shadow]

Not about to take the prisoners stand, but we are our own worse enemies

Governments and institutions have rules for a reason. Otherwise, you'd have moronic, knuckledragging, "bad boyz" doing whatever they felt was "right" to enforce rules (in or out of the system).

Folks, you "gotta play by the rules!"

The supreme court has already ruled on the issue once. The prison system itself considers the act a matter of "behavior modification", so lets stop playing games. It's PUNISHMENT!

That said, if you're going to set rules, policy and procedure, by God, follow them!

Save the government and taxpayers money, the courts time and the department embarrassment.

If the maggot, I'm sorry, inmate, deserves a review, hearing, courtsmartial or WTF ever you want to call it, then give him one, simple as that!

I'm sure what ever it was that warranted the system to put them on this crap is sufficient enough to find the inmate guilty of the behavior and deem the "punishment" warranted.

Then...on to the gruel/nutrabread, the rack...

Simple fix, problem solved

[coolassbrad]

so we feed the pow's in iraq well why not our own???I say let those bastaeds eat the dirt their country is made of

[vett boy]

VT. can always feed 'em Ben &Jerrys

[fletcher4u]

Prisoners ? Rights ? I did'nt know you can be one and have the other

[TxMomma]

Originally Posted by fletcher4u

Prisoners ? Rights ? I did'nt know you can be one and have the other

That's part of the problem............they shouldn't have the same rights as the rest of us. You break the law to the extent that you end up "a guest of the state" you should be stripped of your rights. My .02

[Shadow]

For the most part, when convicted and sentenced, you loose your "constitutional rights" which must later be reinstated by the Governor if they decide to do so and upon a petition by the former inmate.

The "rights" they mention are nothing more that correctional facility policy and procedures, mostly brouoght about by errant C.O.'s that went astray.

These breeches in professionalism bring about in many cases, undesirable changes. Of course, there's still the attorneys, Amnesty International, ACLU and such that pound thier chests for "rights." I guess none of them have been victimized....yet.....