I have seen the meals served locally. They meet the nutrition standards established by law and while they are by no means gourmet, they are quite comparable to the same meals served in our public schools. Personally, I don't believe we should afford our prisoners better fare than we do our school kids. I also have no problem with inmates or their families having to purchase personal items. After all, if they were free, would they not have to purchase their own items? And as to the jails charging exhorbitant prices for these items, does anyone actually have knowledge of this, or is this just more of the same old, "my friend's friend said her cousin's son was in jail and it was really bad?" And has anyone considered that the jails may need to use the money from these sales to augment the insufficient funds the state and local governments provide to operate these facilities. You people act like jails are profit making private businesses and they only spend $1.75 per meal by choice rather than because that's all the government provides in their budgets.

Additionally, there are a couple of reasons for some of the "awful" conditions mentioned above. Inmates in modern jails and prisons don't have individual cells unless they are some type of high risk or special circumstance. They are housed in dorms with multiple beds in big rooms. They also spend their waking hours in large common ares where they are in constant contact with other inmates. And despite the apparent misbelief that the jails are full of unfortunate underprivileged people who arrived there by chance, there are actually some bad people in jail.

For those reasons, some lights have to be left on at all times so the jailors can see what is going on in the cell blocks. That is so they can prevent inmates from assaulting one another, etc. If they were to turn the lights off and not keep watch and an inmate were victimized, or committed suicide, or tripped on the way to the toilet, they jail would be sued for failing to maintain adequate supervision of inmates.

Or another for instance, perhaps an inmate gets out and tells the horror story of not being allowed to have bread. He probably forgot to mention being caught using the bread (yeast) to ferment home-made alcohol.

But the thing that bothers me the most about this, like most issues, is how people hear a story third hand and assume they know all about an issue, all the while remaining blissfully ignorant about the facts. But best of all, I love the argument implying that the 'misused' jails and prisons are packed full of people convicted of first time possession of pot, or even cocaine.

The non-criminal public should certainly direct how the prison and justice systems work, but, instead of simply buying every story the media spins or believing every biased anecdote they hear, they should actually avail themselves to the facts when forming an opinion. And while I doubt many people are committing crimes to get in jail for the food, I have known a few habitual drunks who have been interdicted by the courts and purposely go out in public drunk at the end of November so they can spend the winter months in jail. They call it "three hots and a cot." It is a sad commentary on how society, not government but society, has addressed homelessness and addiction, but it is not the fault of the corrections system, a system which society (and again that's society - you know, us, the populace) chooses to provide the absolute bare minimum of funding necessary to perform its function.

Look at some of the prisons in the country... cable tv, exercise equipment, little (if any) real work, libraries, college/high school training and classes, 3 hot meals a day, moderate access to drugs, no responsibilities...

I know there are those who do not have a roof over their heads and going hungry. My family tries to help those also.

They leave the lights on 100% of the time...which is another way to punish the inmates (it may not be THE reason they leave them on, but it sure would suck to never have the lights off). But, what if they started turning them off at least for a couple of hours at night...I wonder how much $$ they would save in electricity??