What's on your table - eating better than a Manitoba inmate are we?

Manitoba prisoners get dessert every night
Offenders have been getting daily treat for years

By Paul Turenne
Thursday, December 8, 2011
In December 2011 the Manitoba government issued a tender for a three-year contract to deliver powdered pudding mix to all nine adult and youth correctional facilities in the province. A spokeswoman for Manitoba Justice said offenders in provincial jails are served the pudding as dessert with their supper every day, and have been for many years.

Prisoners shouldn’t be given dessert without earning it, a taxpayers’ watchdog group says.

Last Tuesday the Manitoba government issued a tender for a three-year contract to deliver pudding mix — both coconut and orange-flavoured — to all nine adult and youth correctional facilities in the province.

A spokeswoman for Manitoba Justice said offenders in provincial jails are served the pudding as dessert with their supper every day, and have been for many years. The tender is simply a continuation of that.

The pudding is hardly breaking the bank — it costs the province an estimated total of $8.44 per day, including staff wages, to feed an inmate three meals a day, the justice spokeswoman said — but the fact offenders are automatically receiving dessert at all has caught the eye of critics.

“Hopefully recipients of the pudding will have to earn the benefit by helping out with prison work or learning new skills so that they can contribute to society upon release,” said Colin Craig, Manitoba director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “If it was a reward for good behaviour there may be more of a case for it.”

Craig noted a victims’ rights group called Families Against Crime and Trauma cried out publicly last year when a similar tender was issued for ice cream in federal prisons in Quebec, calling it “a joke on taxpayers.”

Craig also noted things could be much worse for Manitoba offenders, pointing to the prisons run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz., where inmates aren’t allowed cigarettes, coffee or salt and pepper.

Arpaio’s efforts are deliberately designed to make prison an uncomfortable place so that there’s at least one more deterrent to prevent inmates from re-offending.

Kelvin Goertzen, the justice critic for the Manitoba Tories, said Manitoba needs to take a serious look at whether its inmates are coming out reformed, because recidivism rates here are high.

“Clearly whatever is going on in our prisons isn’t working. The biggest problem we have in our justice system is when people leave prison they don’t seem to mind returning,” he said. “We need to have an open discussion about this.” Goertzen said the Tories have never specifically discussed dessert for inmates, but said that could certainly become part of the discussion he’s proposing, as would things like video games.

“I think it’s symptomatic of what’s happening in the justice system,” he said.

The Winnipeg Sun asked for a response from Justice Minister Andrew Swan about whether he felt it was necessary to give inmates dessert every day, but the justice spokeswoman said that decision is made at the operational level, not by the minister.

WHAT INMATES EAT AT MANITOBA JAILS

•Breakfast is almost always toast, coffee, a bowl of cereal with milk and a glass of the juice of the day made from crystals. Margarine, jam and peanut butter are available for the toast

•Lunch includes one glass of milk and may be a hot meal, but is most often a bowl of soup and a sandwich of some sort. Hot lunches served recently include: beans & wieners, macaroni, hamburger & fries or a grilled cheese sandwich

•Dinners served recently include: chicken thighs, mashed potato and a vegetable; battered fish with fries and coleslaw; grilled bologna, mashed potato, gravy and a vegetable; spaghetti with sauce, green salad and toast; hamburger with fries and coleslaw; Shepherd’s pie and a vegetable

•Dinner trays include a dessert item, with things such as fruit or a pudding, in keeping with the nutritional standards of the Canada Food Guide

•Menus are set and no selection is offered. Bread is also available, and beverages available with dinner usually include both a glass of milk and a glass of the juice of the day made from crystals. Salt and pepper are available. Ketchup, mustard, relish and other such condiments are sometimes provided