Earlier this month, a 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant, Jakelin Caal Maquin, died while in federal government custody. Reports suggest she may have died from a lack of food and water. Her family, their attorneys, and the public want answers.
Maquin’s death is just the latest case to highlight—among many other things—the failure of government to provide adequate and proper nutrition to people in custody.
Why is prison and jail food almost universally bad in the U.S.? Because, writes Baylen Linnekin, prisoner-consumers either don’t have the choice to shop elsewhere or can’t afford the offerings at prison commissaries. Whether a prison foodservice provider is public or private, the paying customer for general foodservice is the state, the prison, and, ultimately, taxpayers—none historically sympathetic to incarcerated people—rather than the prisoners who must eat the food.
from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2ReTrfM
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