A Basis of Rationing for Federal Prisoners

Abstract

A BASIS for determining the cost of food and a measure of the adequacy or inadequacy of the diets were found to be necessary for the economical, satisfactory and adequate feeding of the inmates of federal prisons or reformatories. Such a basis must be applicable to the average inmate, irrespective of the type of his work, on the assumption that the variation in activity is covered by the variation in appetite. To determine a basis of rationing, two main courses of procedure were open: (1) to accept data already in existence as to what constitutes an adequate diet with regard to kind and to quantities of foods to be fed; and (2) to determine the amounts and kinds of food used in the various prisons, under conditions that were reasonably effective from the point of view of preparation and distribution, and satisfaction under the restricted conditions that exist in a prison, and finally to modify the result so obtained with regard to dietary requirements as dictated by present-day knowledge of nutrition. We adopted the latter as one that would give assurance of success when modifications were introduced. Furthermore, such a procedure enabled us to evaluate the operations of prisons under existing conditions and furnished a basis for judging the effects of future changes. Data were assembled over a period of a year from 5 federal institutions having a total average daily population of about 10,000 men: the penitentiaries at Atlanta, Leavenworth, Fort Leavenworth, and McNeil Island, and the reformatory for men at Chillicothe. These data represented the ordinary operation of prisons, with a tendency to modification in the direction of an increased consumption of vegetables and in some cases considerable variations in the consumption of milk, due to advice to the stewards or variations in farm practices. The foods were subdivided into type groups. The consumption