There has been a lot of recent media coverage of the broken and overcrowded UK prison system. What is discussed a lot less is why it is broken.
As someone who has spent three years in prison from 2020 to 2023 for a severe driving offence that I will forever be remorseful about, I can say that a very good place to start is the prison food.
The cheap and bad food served in prison is symptomatic of the problems the system has as a whole.
The prison service has currently allocated a daily budget of £2.70 per prisoner.
(The Eatwell guide of the government sets the current cost of a healthy diet at £7.48 per day.)
With this limited budget, the prison service aims to provide a diet that is ‘wholesome, nutritious, well prepared and served, reasonably varied and sufficient in quantity’ (Prison Rule 24).
From my experience, none of these standards are being met. The food consists almost entirely of processed carbohydrates and is lacking in protein, healthy fats and fresh ingredients such as vegetables. In addition, the calories provided fall far short of the recommended 2500kcal per day.
Will Howe, who was my cell neighbour at HMP Highpoint over 5 months and was released in 2021, agrees.
He was “hungry before the meal and hungry after. Because it is all just carbs. If there were any vegetables, they were overcooked.”
In terms of the calories provided, he states that the food “did not even approximate anything close to the calories needed.”
His view is that the prison diet leads to chronic ill health and shortened life expectancy.
Considering that the cost per prisoner has ballooned to over £50k per year, it seems reasonable to ask why even more money should be spent when prison should be punishment.
The problem with this view is that current poor diet in prison actually costs a lot more than an adequate diet would cost.
This is due to the high collateral costs that the poor diet results in, affecting every aspect of incarceration and impeding both rehabilitation as well as reintegration into society.
I have listed some of the consequences of the current prison diet.
1. Food waste
Due to the poor taste of the food, much of it is thrown out, resulting in enormous food waste.
Often the food is flushed down the cell toilets, leading to high maintenance bills.
My cellmates regularly ate only the small leg of chicken for the protein and threw all the rest out.
2. Increased aggression and violence in prison
There is evidence that a bad prison diet increases aggression and violence.
In a 2002 study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, 231 inmates at Aylesbury Young Offenders Institution were either given vitamin, mineral and omega-3 supplements, or a placebo.
After 142 days, the active group had committed 37% fewer acts of physical violence and 26% fewer offences overall compared to the placebo group.
A Dutch study of 2010 in Aggressive Behaviour replicated the Aylesbury study with 231 adult inmates, and equally found a significant reduction in violent incidents in the active group versus an increase in the placebo group.
3. Negative consequences for physical and mental health
Bad physical health results in higher healthcare costs. This is the case both for healthcare costs inside the prison, as well as the costs incurred by the NHS after release.
Poor mental health leads to altercations with other inmates and officers, property damage, problems with substance abuse and an increased burden on mental health providers.
According to the NHS, there is a 25 years life expectancy gap between those in prison and the general population. Chronic health conditions are significantly higher among prisoners than in the general population.
In the US – where the prison food budget is lower than in the UK – a report by the U.S. Department of Justice found that 40% of all inmates currently had a chronic health condition.
4. Negative effects on rehabilitation
Unhealthy nutrition can impair cognitive function and concentration.
A prisoner who is unwell and malnourished will not engage well with education and the courses provided in prison to address offending behaviour.
Bad food can also increase irritable and low mood, depression and anxiety, which equally lead to worse rehabilitation and learning outcomes.
5. Increased risk of re-offending.
Because the food provided is not enough, prisoners need to spend money in the prison shop (known as ‘canteen’) to have enough to eat.
In my case, I had to spend around £35 weekly on the canteen for food.
This was because to stay healthy I exercised in the gym and jogged around the prison yard. On the prison diet alone, I simply wouldn’t have had the energy to do that.
Over three years in prison, this added up to over £5000 spent on food.
I was lucky to have family that could send me the money, but many others are not in the same position.
Will Howe did not exercise as much as I did, but he also had to spend all of his prison wages of £18 per week on food, plus had to occasionally have money send in.
Another prisoner I met at HMP Standford Hill had savings when he came into prison, but left prison nearly broke, just to buy food.
Not being able to save up your prison wages and leaving prison with no money increases the risk of re-offending and also means people are more likely to be homeless when they leave prison.
6. Increased criminality inside prison
Prisoners who do not have any outside support need to find some other way to pay for food. In most cases this means activity that is not desired and leads to more problems, as the prison wages of no more than £18 a week will not suffice when a can of tuna costs around £2 and a lot of money needs to be spent to make phone calls.
My cellmate at HMP Wandsworth was distilling spirits in our cell, using basic prison items such as the heating element of a tea kettle. He was selling his product so he could pay for his protein powder, cans of tuna and fruit from the canteen.
Prison reform needs to start from the bottom up. Unless the food in prison improves, there is no chance that the entire system will improve either.
The yearly prison budget stands now at over £6.85 billion and re-offending is estimated to cost £18 billion per year.
Increasing the food budget to a more reasonable £5 per day would cost less than £80 million per year, showing how much potential there is with comparatively little initial cost.
But just throwing money at a problem is not enough, as Lucy Vincent from the charity ‘Food behind bars’ explains.
She has been working closely with prison kitchens for years, educating and empowering them, with the aim of bringing back pride and aspiration.
The results are positive and show that something can be done, even with limited resources.
What is needed is not just more money, but a complete change in culture and attitude. Prison needs to stop being hidden away from sight, and people need to acknowledge that rehabilitation and the health of prisoners are important, because nearly every prisoner will eventually be released and might be your future neighbour.
Words without waffle 
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