Prisoners have no right to hot meals, appeal court says

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco -- State prison rules say inmates are entitled to two hot meals a day - but it's up to prison officials to decide how hot is hot enough, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Observing that prisoners have no right to be served food at "the most aesthetically pleasing temperature," the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned a judge's ruling that would have required Pelican Bay State Prison in Del Norte County to turn up the heat on meals to inmates in the security housing unit.

... Prison officials replied that their only obligation was to serve meals that were cooked and "not cold." But Superior Court Judge Philip Schafer said the regulation required "a temperature acceptable to most consumers" and told officials to come up with procedures to make sure food was reasonably hot when it reached the inmates.

That's beyond a judge's authority, the appeals court said Tuesday. The court said inmates have a right to "proper nourishment while in custody" but have no right to enforce the department's regulations.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/1...

Stale bread and warm water for them all! This kind of crap makes it into a courtroom...pathetic!

I am beginning to see a theme here.

By the time I prepare a meal, when I finally get to eat it, it certainly isn't 'hot' and some times barely warm. If an individual doesn't support coddling prisoners, the inference is he/she is a rethug or rethug like?

toward human life and dignity makes you rethug like.

Please tell me you are kidding.

David

Go look at the meals out elderly recieve in the nursing home and then...........talk to me about greedy impassionate attitudes.

In the kitchen of a nursing home. I'm doing diet aide tonight (prep and cleaning) but i also do a fair mount of cooking on the schedule.

Tonight's dinner menu was baked ham and pineapple served with steamed spinach and scalloped potatos. The soup was beef with barkey, and for those who weren't in a ham mood, we had tuna salad paltters available.

Last night we did thanksgiving dinner early - whipped out several breasts of turkey, a ham, two pans of stuffing, two pans of sweet potatoes, green bean cassarole, and a nice selection of hors d'ourves and drinks (stock juices and crystal light, but also hot cider, red and white wine, herbal teas)

When I cook Saturday, I'll be making french onion soup - scratch, we don't use that lipton pre-made powder here - sserved with chicken parmesian and, well, spinach again.

We bust our butts here. Unfortunately the products we use might not be top shelf stuff (limited budgets and all) and there's really no good way to dress up the puree for those who need it, but we're hardly "greedy" or "impassionate". I'm aware I'm not speaking for every elder care facility out there - my own grandmother ended up in a pretty bad one untill we brought her back home - but I just wanted you to be aware we're certainly not all in that mold

if, as we do, take responsibility upon ourselves to enforce some laws on some people (mostly the poor and minorities) then either you take the responsibility of treating them humanely or admit you are a thug of the same kind who ran Saddam and dumbaya's torture rooms.

Leave the judging to the judge is all.

sense of well being and actual health (scientifically proven), which probably makes caring for inmates easier and cheaper. So at the risk of coddling, it probably makes economic sense to serve prisoners food that is hot enough.

when served, the risk of spoilage rises and the likelihood of the meal causing illness increased.

It is more cost efficient to serve the hot meal than to deal with the medical expenses and sanitation requirements caused by an outbreak of food poisoning at a prison.

Common sense should dictate but guess it gives way to "make the bastards pay" - problem is, unhealthy and disgruntled inmate populations make the prison staff's job harder and more expensive.

One, you have never broken a law. Never used pot, never slept with a 17 year old when you were 18, never drove after a couple of beers... Any of those things could have landed you in prison so that leads to...

Two, you have broken laws but feel you're only entitled to stale bread and warm water as well.

Or three, you're one of those people who loves to pass judgments on others without knowing or understanding all the facts in the situation.

I know which number I'd circle if I had to guess.

I'd guess dude falls into category One

The Guy who never got caught with the roach.

The "pathetic" comment was truly revealing, quite sick if you ask me.

driving and a left rear brake light failure while driving. Should these heinous crimes land me in jail, 'warm' food will be OK with me; I'll be very thankful even if it isn't a few degrees 'hotter'. It is more than pathetic that issues such as this make it into a court of any kind. Stale bread with warm water to dunk it in, works for me.

Even prisoners are entitled to a little basic dignity. Not to mention, health regulations that apply to prison food as much as restaurant food. It has to be served above a healthy temperature.

"The danger zone: 41º F - 140º F. Potentially hazardous foods exposed to this temperature range for a cumulative total of more than 4 hours are not safe to eat."

Look it up: Critical Temperatures for Food Service

I'm with the folks who wondered how this ever got into a courtroom.

If the food is not properly stored or is held at the wrong temps, re-refrigerated, held at the wrong temps again and so on, then once you reach that four-hour mark, that's it; you toss the food out, or take the chance of it being contaminated with the toxins the bacteria make. And thus, why it's unsafe

that is scientific-data on the range within which food is unsafe to eat after four hours...the law tends to be more stringent with safeguards built in.

I can't say for certain about other locales, but for example here in CT I am required to use a thermometer whenever I steam milk at work and unless a customer requests that it be cooler I am required to steam it to a minimum temperature of 165'F before serving and have to dispose of it as soon as it falls below 145'F. (Literally...if the steamed pitcher is sitting on the counter and the inspector sticks a temp. probe in it and it reads 139'F, I'm going to be fined even if I hadn't served it nor intended to. This is why pitchers of milk steamed for "kids" hot chocolate (served at 120'F) go directly from the cup to the sink...we're advised to not set them down.) Why all the fuss? Because Ms. Tracy the health inspector is a hardass and I feel better eating at the Denny's next door and the Taco Bell one door further down because of it.

If the food is merely warm and not hot (I'm going to assume warm means about 120'F as that is the top of the temperature range that food has a mouth-feel approximating slightly-above-ambient temperature in most people), the odds are that unless the time from cooking to service is more than 20 minutes (even in a facility of 5000 people this would represent a serious failure to have an effective delivery mechanism) it has never been heated to a degree as to meet health code regulations in the first place.

However, when anyone, regardless of situation, lands in the custody of the state or fed, they should be provided basic, nourishing sustenance that includes hot, not 'warm', meals. This is what is supposed to separate us from those who do not value human life.

If you don't agree with that, its certainly your right. I guess everybody needs to hate someone.

We just place a different value on human life. I respect it and you don't.

which also equates to lack of empathy. I think we may be witnessing a winner.

...the Bush administration used to justify torture. You are aware of that, aren't you?

You're serious?

Well, fuck me. Right in the ear.

People are dying in custody due to lack of proper nutrition and medical care.
The matter is so bad the california prison system is under a court reciever
(Kelso http://web.pacific.edu/x21193.xml )

The criminal justice system is broken. The prison system is broken.
We know its all broken, we know why, and that's partly what we here on
DU are trying to fix.

No one is "coddling" prisoners anywhere. Certainly not in Pelican Bay.
Spend a week in that hellhole, you'll sing a different tune, assuming
you last that long. You might not. Dead serious.

Double T, this is not a matter to blow hard on. There are serious problems
and serious people trying to address them in difficult circumstances.
Please remember that the trial judge ruled in favor of the prisoners, and
believe me its gotta be bad for that to happen. Although a higher court
thought otherwise, the problem isn't going away, its got to be worked out.

Or, stop using the cell phone while driving. It can be done.

I'm not even christian in name or practice yet I recognize jesus as a fine man.

Pelican Bay State Prison is a California State Prison that houses some of California's most dangerous inmates.

The prison is a "supermax" facility located in the northwestern part of the state near Crescent City, Del Norte County, on 275 acres (1.1 km²).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelican_Bay_State_Prison

Most are guilty of crimes, some are innocent of them. Many can be rehabilitated, many cannot. That is the nature of life, but it's still life. The reasoning for treating these prisoners inhumanely is built on the same premise as bush* used when ordering the torture of prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. It is the belief that some life is worth less than other life and that leads down a path I don't care to take.

Anyone who thinks that prisoners are coddled or have it easy deserves to go to prison.

You Done FUCKED UP BIG TIME.

Pelican Bay ain't no joke, that's hard core max shit.

we're talking violent offenders.

BUT, for the sake of peace and keeping the natives from getting restless.. It's cheaper to give hot meals, than paying for riot suppression, death benefits for dead guards and lawsuits by all involved.

Humane treatment shows a nation's civility and ethics.

And, considering the true criminals dine on quail and caviar while the low level drug criminals fill our prisons to bursting, you might have a little broader consideration for the people who are caught in that system....

Imprisoning poor people is an industry in this nation. I, for one, want every human being treated humanely. Because the more we do it, the better it is for ALL of us.

NT!

Isn't that what we rally against?

Did anyone see the wrongly convicted man on the news last night? DNA cleared him, after he spent 20 years in prison for rape and murder. I'd like to hear his take on the prison system...

There is someone I hold very dear to me, who spent 5 years in prison; trust me, it wasn't the meals that scarred him.

I think providing hot food is fair and humane. To deny something so basic would be wrong.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.



-Laelth

Inmates are losers, a burden on our society and vicious, manlipulative sociopaths for the most part. Narcocistic also comes to mind. Very few have promise.....let's serve our elderly who are not criminal offenders.

drug related crimes. It is so easy for you to rationalize (Rationalization is the key to happiness) that they are no longer human because they are in prison but they are still humans. And treating them badly is not going to help anything.

And treating them as humans has nothing to do with how we treat our seniors.

They really need nothing more....they are not movie stars, well most are not anyways.

Try this for dinner tonight. A slice of bologna that has turned green, two slices of moldy white bread and an eight ounce cup of koolaid.

That's what they're feeding the 18 year old who got caught with a half pound of pot as well as the people guilty of violent crimes.

And why does this issue have to be an "either/or" kind of thing with some other pressing issue, such as our elderly? Why can't we do both? We have the trillions to just hand over to the crooks at the top, yet can't even come up with millions for those we need to care about, be they prisoners, elderly and so on...

and when he gets out of prison, hopefully he can aspire to being as humanitarian as you. After all... he's "just a loser".

You're one of those that think the state would save a lot of money if every conviction resulted in the convicted being taken out behind the courthouse and then shot in the head, right?

Yes, most of them are grade-A assholes. This does not entitle anyone to treat them worse than most unwanted animals are treated. It's called the justice system, not the revenge system. Learn the difference.

You know, nursing homes and restaurants are one of the few places where its easy for ex-cons to get employment. What goes around comes around...

I see that your heart has not as yet grown, Grinchy.

REHABILITATE THE OFFENDER! There are few humans who respond in any favorable way to treatment like you seem to think is acceptable. And in the today's climate any one of us can end up being incarcerated for even just standing up for our rights.

I'm just wondering, do you recommend that type of treatment? Do you know who make up the bulk of the prison population in this country?

Or were you just trying to be cute and failed miserably?

Plus, they are getting meals three times a day. Have you ever paid any attention to the meals out elderly get in most nursing homes. The prisoners get the better deal every time. Sad is it not?

Proper food prep isn't at the expense of proper nursing home care...

I'm not.......

The Prison Show

Airs on Friday nights at 9pm CST
It's well worth your time

I might listen for the fun of it.

Sorry, my bad.

"Jew lover"
"nigger lover"
"fag lover"

See how easy it is to hate other people? All you have to do to hate them is relegate them all to a single demonized class, and then strip them of their humanity.

Simple.

Considering how the phrase "****** lover" is generally used and then thinking about the majority population of prisons.....

come back and tell us how luxurious it is again.


Poor treatment of patients in a nursing home justifies poor treatment of prisoners? How does that work?

We the taxpayer support their detox, feed, cloth and shelter them and give complete health care to them when most here on DU can't get health insurance.

Fuck Inmates.

when they are released, the do not fit back into society and go back to their criminal ways. Rehabilitation at least gives them the incentive to be law-abiding, productive and successful members of society. You sound like you want more crime than less

They are lost souls. I'd say put the money/time into our youth and families to prevent the criminal socialization.

(i.e., the non-incarcerated white-collar "criminals") like AIG, Citicorp, et al, then there's more than enough to attempt to rehabilitate those "lost souls". At the very least, we can psychologically study the true lost-causes and learn how to prevent such behavior in the future.

Or is that a waste of time and money, too? Should we just close down all the psych-wards while we're at it because some are just not curable?

But I'd suggest that it lies in the person with no pity or compassion. That person is not necessarily behind bars right now. They might even be typing at a keyboard.

many of them think working people are fools and are there for the taking.

The vast majority of criminals are so because of the lack of money or security. When you have no money and no way to earn it, you take it. When you live in a place where gangs rule the streets you join.

It's both heartless and cruel to spread fallacies about people whom you know nothing about.

You're right, we spend a lot of money on inmates. How is fucking them going to fix the problem? They need to be able to be productive members of society. Prison does not provide this for them. A better solution needs to be found, one that's not standing on a soapbox judging people for having made a mistake. There are people in prison who certainly belong there, but a lot of them are just normal people who have chosen the wrong path. I'm sure there are men and women who would be brilliant scientists rotting away in cells.

The fact of the matter is, you know nothing about these people, or their lives. How do you know you wouldn't behave the same way in the same circumstances? Ask 100 people whether they would have gone along with the Nazi regime in Germany, and maybe a few would answer yes or maybe, due to the fact that they're realistic or they don't like Jews. We know this isn't true though, if that many people had protested the actions of the Nazis, their crimes wouldn't have happened. So, what now, fuck the Germans?

They take taxpayer money and supply drugs and weapons to inmates.

Listen you stupid bitch, nobody asked for your fucking detox program.

But as long as you insist on spending $46,000 a year per inmate, trying
to force people to stay sober, the least you can do is serve them hot meals.

Let's see how many days of wet sandwiches and room temperature slop
before you're ready to stab some punk bitch in the neck for saying
what you just did.

By the way, there is no "health insurance" in prison. In one 200-man
dorm I saw two people die of medical neglect in one 6-month period.
There are no microwaves in prison, no gymnasiums, no clean anything.

This may come as a shock to you, but you don't actually have to commit
a crime to go to prison anymore. Check out the gang and conspiracy laws.

My dad didn't have the "better deal" when he did five years state time and seven years of federal time (both in TX). He certainly wasn't coddled, nor did he get three meals a day.

Now... of course I could tell you some of the stories about what he did endure-- but I doubt you'd really want to hear about that level of ugliness and violence this close to the holidays.

There's a pretty wide-spread myth out there in TV Land that prisoners have a swell time, but that's all it is-- a myth...

nursing home food preparation/serving procedures. They are far more regulated and patrolled than restaurants in every state I am aware of. I guarantee that if you walk into nearly any nursing home at lunch time you will find thermometers sticking out of every pan of food being served and food delivered to rooms in warming carts or held in proofers. If food was not held and served at safe temps in a nursing home many could die from food borne bacteria. It does happen but it is exceedingly rare and usually due to contamination of uncooked cold foods prior to arrival at the facility such as produce.

That said I would guess that prisoner food is held in proofers until they are transferred to unheated carts for delivery. My state has adopted a different range than was posted above. The danger zone here is between 41 degrees and 130 with holding temp 135 or above. If these meals were routinely allowed to linger in the 'danger zone' for over 4 hours there would absolutely be food poisoning issues at the prison which were not mentioned. It is very difficult to maintain 135 from the time the food leaves a kitchen for a half hour to an hour without compromising food quality because the starting temp would necessarily have to be too high. When is the last time your airplane meal was served piping hot?

BTW I am a food service manager in a retirement community associated with a nursing facility.

...not ALL people in jail are bad guys...The real criminals never go to jail anyway...

It wouldn't provide proper nutrition.

Can we at least agree they're entitled to that, this being a progressive community and all?

n/t

toast, and a sandwich for lunch.

Maybe I'm wrong.

You have the option of choosing whether your meal is cold or hot or whatever. That isn't extended to prisoners.

All nourishing food isn't necessarily hot and all hot food isn't necessarily nourishing.

Much ado about nothing.

frees one or more of them will you just shrug your shoulders and mumble "sucks to be you, loser" as you shuffle away? Or maybe "get a job"?

food.

and cold clotted and or spoiled "food" shoved through slots does not equal humane to me...does it have to be formal dinners? hell no, just food you would find acceptible.

These prisoners aren't given access to a buffet line then allowed to choose the cold cereal or the hot fajita station. They're given a set portion of the daily meal on a plate and nothing more. When a meal that is supposed to be hot is instead cold it usually means that it has either been improperly prepared or left to sit and gather bacteria.

Our penal system was designed to rehabilitate prisoners, not poison them. It's a sad indictment on our society when even the 'bleeding heart liberals' think nothing of human life and dignity.

That is exactly what I was thinking as I was reading through the replies to this thread. Food does have to be held at a certain temperature or it does start growing bacteria. This could make prisoners ill. It's probably cheaper to serve the food properly, than to have to send prisoners off the doctor when they get ill from improperly handled food.

Remember, many of the guards at Abu Ghraib were prison guards here in the U.S. There's a long history of inhumane treatment toward prisoners in this country. That is why petty criminals tend to come out as hardened ones.

I had to take a food handler's test here in WA. Health codes.

I've got a friend who is serving time for a white collar crime. She's sick - they give her an aspirin. She's hungry, her friend sends her 50 bucks a month to buy extras like an apple or such because the food served is for dogs.
No air conditioning, no heat - takes what you get.
She's got multiple health problems, going blind and never sees a doctor for anything. Privatized prisons are a "for profit" racket. See link for details:

http://www.alternet.org/story/17392/?page=entire

Food gets cold there FAST.

and their regulations/information, harmful bacteria can still grow at temps between 41F and 50F, thus the "danger zone" of 41F to 140F. Talk to a food-safety inspector (or a chef) sometime about why this is so important.

This isn't food that is traditionally served cold. Ok? They aren't complaining they are getting nourishing food that is suppose to be served cold...

It hardly is much ado about nothing. Reading your last 3 posts was like listening to Bill-O make a point...frustrating.

Unless they're homeless or something they did have a choice....Don't go to prison.

If you're willing to make an exception for the homeless, it might open your heart a little more to accept others left on the fringe of society.

Maybe not.

Hot food not served at proper temp is dangerous and illegal. I don't care who you are.

Our servicemen and women eat slop in Baghdad served up by the most unpatriotic corporation in the U.S. - Halliburton and Halliburton even overcharges the poor soldier or marine. They eat rations in foxholes out in the desert and we have prisoners in Pelican Bay complaining about lunch which they don't even pay for but deserve nothing more than bread and water. I think they should eat what they're served and they should be grateful they got that. Prison isn't supposed to be some culinary experience to educate the palate by dregs of society, social misfits, murderers, and the like.

Hope you end up in prison one day. Oh wait, was that vindictive and unbecoming sounding? Funny how that works...

A culinary experience isn't asking that your rations be properly prepared. What an extreme and stupid way to look at things.

NT!

given that the vast majority of Republicans are also Christians. Bet the guy you're responding to would beg to differ, though.

is obeying the rules. If the Bush administration does not care enough about our soldiers to similarly set standards for the food served to them in Iraq and then require the contractors who prepare the soldier's food to comply with those standards, that is scandalous. Both the soldiers and the prisoners are entitled to decent treatment. If the regulation is too generous to the prisoners, it should be changed. The appellate court is out of line here. The lower court was interpreting the regulations in the most reasonable fashion. It is not the job of the courts to write the regulations. It's the job of the court to interpret them. The appellate court, not the lower court, was rewriting the regulation.

Get salmnonella and have a good day, mate.

That screed makes Bush seem downright compassionate in comparison. As antisocial as I am toward people, even I have enough compassion to think they should get a hot meal and not bacteria laden slop.

I once had to live on $0.68/day for a couple of months. It didn't leave me much room for choices but it did give me an appreciation for what the life of those who never had a choice is like.

Prison is filled with those who never really had a choice of whether to have a cold bowl of cereal or a hot bowl of oatmeal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism

Raw foodism (or rawism) is a lifestyle promoting the consumption of un-cooked, un-processed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. If 60-100% of a person's total food consumption is raw food, he/she is considered a raw foodist or living foodist.<1><2> Raw foodists typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. Raw foodism or a raw food diet is usually equated with raw veganism in which only raw plant foods are eaten,<3> but other raw foodists emphasize raw meat and other raw animal products.<4> Depending on the type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include a selectıon of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds (including sprouted whole grains such as gaba rice), eggs, fish (such as sashimi), meat (such as carpaccio), and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized dairy products (such as raw milk, raw cheese and raw yogurt). Raw foodists can be divided between those that advocate raw vegetarianism or raw veganism, those that advocate a raw omnivorous diet, and those that advocate a diet of only raw animal foods (carnivorous).

Adherents of raw foodism believe that consumption of uncooked foods encourages weight loss and prevents and/or heals many forms of sickness and chronic diseases.<5> Some medical studies have indicated that different forms of raw food diets may lead to various health problems, while other studies have shown positive health outcomes with such diets.

more than other mammals in part because early man began cooking his food.

Less calories spent digesting = more calories for brain development


Not that I'm inferring anything about adherents of raw foodism, but I thought that was interesting.

I think that you can get a lot of calories from raw foods like crustaceans, mollusks, fish, eggs, fruits, nuts and berries.

Cooking allows access to more meat from birds and mammals. Cooking of starchy grains is a pretty late development.

There is the theory that human brains increased due to aquatic origins, a dependence on Omega-3 fatty acids and iodine for the development of large, complex brains. These chemicals would not be readily available to a terrestrial ape, but would be abundant in a seafood diet.

requirement was right or wrong was not up to the court. The lower court is correct in this case because it was interpreting the regulation, the language in the regulation, as the language would be understood in our everyday, ordinary lives. Whether the regulation is fair or appropriate or unreasonable is not up to the court. The court is just there to interpret regulations and laws made by others. The appellate court overreached here. The appellate court was trying to legislate, and that is not what courts are supposed to do.

Personally, if it were up to me, I would prefer a regulation that required one hot meal per day and that required that one hot meal to be hot, not sort of lukewarm after sitting 20 minutes or so. But, I will not be asked for input on the regulation. There are regulatory agencies that write the regulations. California also has a legislature that passes laws that govern the regulators and guide them in their work.

but I would imagine that they make a tray for each prisoner in the kitchen, load the trays up on a cart, then take the cart to the cells.

I'm not sure how you could get around having it sit for 20 minutes or so.

I mean like a hotel or where you had to do catering for hundreds of people? I have. You can't just plate-up several hundred trays of food in 20 minutes or less. You have to use these warming cabinets that allow you to put the racks of trays in them for all the food that must be kept hot.

As we are talking about prisons, institutions that are often privately operated and where the "customers" aren't going to be suing you for serving them food that is no longer hot and well into the danger zone, then that "20 minutes" is far more than that and can easily get into the four-hour limit. We know about the corruption that has become of these private prisons. Why would they spend that much more energy on warming cabinets if they can get away with not doing so? I am surprised this issue made it to a court; that a prisoner was able to take on the private prison company at all.

Then again, I've never heard of prisoners being "served" their food in their cells. Isn't that a security violation? When you have prisoners fashioning weapons out of plastic knives and making other ingenius inventions, don't you think they'll be all eating in a commons area?

They could simply put the prisoner's plates in bags that keep them warm. People who attend a lot of pot luck dinners use bags of that kind to transport their food from home to, let's say, their church.

all the carts have to go through security.

We shouldn't have to give into every needy request of prisoners.

intends to inflame the discussion.

I am thinking of my ex husband, who is now in San Quentin...and his biggest pet peeve and obsessive thing was our food should be really HOT. He used to yell at my son to eat when it was burning his tongue!

so the idea of him having to eat LUKEWARM food...is like icing on the cake of his incarceration!


edit to add: after reading the thread, do doubt someone will say that I am a mean-spirited person to deny a 'basic' right to these people, etc... but my PERSONAL gratification of thinking of my ex husband (who abused me while pregnant, terrorized my oldest son and possibly molested our daughter) being in a personal hell every time he eats. I am very pleased. Yep, I can forgive alot, but not this man...