How good should you eat in jail?

When taking office as a sheriff, you find one of the most time consuming parts of the job is running the jail. Although a jail administrator is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the jail, I find that I still spend much of my time dealing with issues that come up in the jail. Over the last year and a half I have had many family members and friends of people in custody contact me, concerned about various things they hear from people who are in the jail.

Two of the most common things I am contacted about are not getting proper medications or treatment when inmates are ill, and not getting enough food to eat, or the food that is served does not taste very good. I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss those issues. The first issue of medical treatment is really very straight forward from the Sheriff's Office standpoint. The Sheriff's Office has a medical contract with a major medical provider that provides medical care in jails and prisons. Under this contract, a full-time nurse works at the Vernon County jail. Every person that is brought in to the jail goes through a series of medical questions (medical evaluation). Doctors make regular visits to the jail throughout the week to deal with any medical issues that need to be taken care of. There are also emergency protocols in place for jail staff to follow that allows them access to a doctor by phone 24/7 and the doctor can decide if an inmate needs to be transported to the hospital right then, or if it can wait until the next day for a doctor to come out to the jail. Doctors also decide any medications that can be given or that are not allowed in the jail. Medications are either allowed or denied by the doctors -- not the jail staff.

The next most popular issue in the jail is the food. I feel that people in a jail should be treated like human beings and when it comes to food, they should be given food that will keep them alive and healthy. Now having said that, I also feel that many Americans eat more than they need to and a lot of the time, that food is not healthy. We use a food contract service just like we do with medical treatment. The food served to the inmates in the jail is cooked in the kitchen at the jail by staff provided through the food contract. There is no catering or prepared food brought in from anywhere else. In fact, even the bread we serve is made fresh in the kitchen each day! This is done because making your own bread is much cheaper than buying a loaf of bread. There is a list of menu items the kitchen has and each item is certified by a dietitian to provide at least 1800 calories to each person each day.

It was not too long ago one of my road deputies who had served in the military looked at one of our food trays getting ready to be distributed in the jail and said, "I wish they served us food this good overseas." The food is healthy, and the portions are enough, so my reply when they say it does not taste good and is not enough food is, "Don't come to jail."