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Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

The commissary markup is absolutely true, but "deliberately underfed" is as far as I can tell, completely untrue. Most states actually have calorie minimum rules. Arkansas is 2300 per day. Kentucky 2400 per day. Both states mandate annual menu reviews by a third-party dietician. New York state's guideline is 2800 per day + 90g protein. California 2500 per day. The Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities additionally states there are to be at least 3 meals per day, two of them hot, and no more than 14 hours between dinner and breakfast.

These are all right within the USDA's general population daily calorie guidance of 2-3 thousand per day for males.

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Illinois County Jail Standards[1] provides that:

"Food must be of sufficient nutritional value and provide a minimum of 1,800 to 2,000 calories for adults"

Which is one of the worst written statutes I've ever seen. How do you have a range for a minimum? Of course, the jails aim for the lower end, which in theory should be sufficient for a sedentary population, but protein is highly expensive and most of those calories are cheap carbs which don't satiate the prisoners.

Also, the Jail Standards are not enforceable by the courts as Illinois courts can only enforce laws which have a punishment for non-compliance and are therefore deemed mandatory. Otherwise they are just directory. People see the word "shall" in statutes and assume that government officials must comply, but that is not the case in many states.[2]

Food for prisoners is really back-stopped by the 8th and 14th Amendments and their requirement is simply that you don't die of malnutrition.

[1] https://www.ilga.gov/ftp/JCAR/AdminCode/020/020007010001100R...

[2] https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter...

It's possible that some of this is down to the "Prison" vs "Jail" distinction?

But I can't source what I said.

What I can source is that prisoners largely report going hungry. That's a completely different problem though.

I cannot remove or edit my comment. Thank you for the push back.

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