Texas Prisons Have Stopped Serving Weekend Lunches
After outlawing special last-meal requests for prisoners on death row, the Texas prison system has now gone one better: They're outlawing meals, period, for everyone.
Since April, the New York Times reports, inmates have not been provided lunches on Saturdays and Sundays.
It's a cost-cutting measure: an effort to trim $2.8 million in food-related expenses from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's 2011 budget, which makes up just a small part of the state's multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall. They've made other changes elsewhere — say powdered milk instead of actual milk, or sliced white bread instead of hamburger buns. The practice is already in effect in Ohio and Arizona prisons; Georgia goes further, serving two meals per day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
The American Correctional Association recommendations state inmates should receive three meals per day, seven days a week. But Daron Hall, the president of the ACA, has no problem with Texas's new policy:
"In the economic climate we're in, you're asked to do some creative and inventive things."
John Whitmire, the Democratic state senator whose kvetching led to the last-meal ban, said this:
"If they don't like the menu, don't come there in the first place."
Gee, that's sympathetic. We commend his self-restraint in not suggesting they give the TDCJ a bad review on Yelp, then proceeding to devour an entire rotisserie chicken with his bare hands just inches away from a hungry inmate's grasp.
Since April, the New York Times reports, inmates have not been provided lunches on Saturdays and Sundays.
It's a cost-cutting measure: an effort to trim $2.8 million in food-related expenses from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's 2011 budget, which makes up just a small part of the state's multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall. They've made other changes elsewhere — say powdered milk instead of actual milk, or sliced white bread instead of hamburger buns. The practice is already in effect in Ohio and Arizona prisons; Georgia goes further, serving two meals per day on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
The American Correctional Association recommendations state inmates should receive three meals per day, seven days a week. But Daron Hall, the president of the ACA, has no problem with Texas's new policy:
"In the economic climate we're in, you're asked to do some creative and inventive things."
John Whitmire, the Democratic state senator whose kvetching led to the last-meal ban, said this:
"If they don't like the menu, don't come there in the first place."
Gee, that's sympathetic. We commend his self-restraint in not suggesting they give the TDCJ a bad review on Yelp, then proceeding to devour an entire rotisserie chicken with his bare hands just inches away from a hungry inmate's grasp.
Reality check it is, I don't know how you do it sis. I've been in this little hick time for too long and its coming to an end. My son got his diploma and I've got to leave. Because he has a car, a job and is in college the cops are on the hunt, but I'll be damned if I see my child get into trouble because of his color. I'm sick of this prejudice and racial divided city, so its time to move on.
The GOP's clearly don't give a darn about us, our rights etc, so we have to make our own way. I don't believe we need them, but we do need a even playing ground and clearly its not the case.
I need to be where I can help to make a difference, and that's clearly not here.