Abstract
Research has demonstrated the importance of supportive relationships and social networks to prisoners’ psychosocial outcomes, especially for women. Understanding how these relationships are constructed, negotiated, and sustained is, therefore, critical for social workers and other professionals who work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated clients, and/or their family and friends. This article analyzes formerly incarcerated women’s narratives about prison foodways, demonstrating the centrality of these systems to prisoners’ relationships and building knowledge about everyday inmate interactions with people inside and outside of prison. Research, clinical, and policy recommendations suggest ways prison foodways could be altered to strengthen prisoners’ relationships.
Research has demonstrated the importance of supportive relationships and social networks to psychosocial and health outcomes for incarcerated people, especially for women (e.g., Collica, 2012; Johnson & Brooks, 2011; Lund, Hyde, Kempson, & Clarke, 2002; Mignon & Ransford, 2012; O’Brien, 2009; Owen, 1998; Pardue, Arrigo, & Murphy, 2011; Severance, 2005; Staton-Tindall et al., 2007). Understanding the lived experience of incarceration and the everyday ways in which prisoners’ relationships are constructed, negotiated, and sustained is, therefore, critical for social workers and other professionals who work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated clients and/or their family and friends. This article analyzes women’s narratives about prison foodways to build knowledge about everyday inmate interactions. Findings reveal the centrality of food systems to prisoners’ relationships with people inside and outside of prison and can be used to inform research, social work clinical practice, and correctional policy.
Female Incarceration in the United States: Knowledge and Invisibilities
The United States has the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world with over two million people living behind bars (Glaze & Parks, 2012; International Prison Centre for Prison Studies, 2011). In spite of its widespread use, little is known about “how individuals feel and act while incarcerated [and how the experience] may affect their attitudes and behaviors after release” (Visher & O’Connell, 2012, p. 386). The invisibility of the prisoner and the prison experience is particularly pronounced for women (Zaitzow & Thomas, 2003). Their “hyperinvisibility” is ascribed to the intersectionality of incarcerated women’s oppressions related to gender, race, and class (Davis, 1999, p. xi), and the fact that they are a small minority (7%) of the U.S. prison population (Carson & Sabol, 2012), even though women’s rate of incarceration has outpaced men’s for decades (Sentencing Project, 2012).
The invisibility of the female prison experience is also fueled by the preponderance of quantitative research in contemporary studies of U.S. corrections which describes the sociodemographic composition of the inmate population, records disease prevalence, evaluates intervention programs, and studies recidivism and other criminal justice outcomes (e.g., Carson & Sabol, 2012; Freudenberg, 2002; Gover, Perez, & Jennings, 2008; Marshall, 2010). While this research can include information about women’s incarcerated lives, it tends to dwell on female prisoners’ characteristics, behaviors, and diagnoses prior to and after incarceration, leaving the actual experience of incarceration, and its implications, underexamined. Feminist sociologist Dorothy Smith’s construction of the everyday as problematic centers the actuality of women’s lives as the location from which relationships of power are understood (Smith, 1987). Using this framework to critique current knowledge about women’s incarceration in the United States, it is not only troublesome that incarcerated women are largely excluded from academic discourse about prison but also that the positivist methods that dominate knowledge construction about corrections portray incarcerated women as inanimate objects, silencing their voices and neglecting analyses of the relations that organize their lives (Smith, 1987).
Qualitative literature about incarcerated women promotes a visibility of women’s everyday carceral experience (e.g., Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004; Effernan, 1972; Giallombardo, 1966; Girshick, 1999; Hedderman, Gunby, & Shelton, 2011; Johnson, 2003; Owen, 1998; Pollack, 2003; Watterson, 1996). For example, McCorkel’s (2013) gripping ethnography of a privately run drug treatment program in a state prison for women offers a clear description of daily prison life that exposes the flaws and hypocrisy of U.S. correctional policy. Her analysis is rooted in the everyday world of the program participants, telling the prison story from the prisoners’ standpoint. She documents the actions, words, and emotions of participants and staff, along with physical features of the space. From the every day, she builds understanding about how the institution’s organization oppresses incarcerated women and undermines their recovery. Qualitative research like this study illustrate Smith’s (1987) thesis about the utility of the every day in understanding women’s lives. It is through these everyday microactivities that people, on the inside and the outside, make meaning of their lives, negotiate their identity and relationships, and do their time (Bosworth & Carrabine, 2001).
Food-related behaviors are a dimension of everyday prison life that can be used to understand a person’s incarcerated experience. Research about foodways, or the constellation of behaviors related to the acquisition, production, distribution, and consumption of food, has explicated culture, social relationships, and place across a broad range of time periods and geographic locations (Counihan & Van Esterik, 2008; Wood, 1995). A small body of research about prison foodways, primarily conducted with incarcerated men in Europe and Canada, demonstrates the ways in which prisoners use food to negotiate and perform identity, power, and relationships (Cate, 2008; Earle & Phillips, 2012; Godderis, 2006a, 2006b; Milligan, Waller, & Andrews, 2002; Smith, 2002; Thomas, 2008; Ugelvik, 2011; Valentine & Longstaff, 1998).
Method
For this study, I interviewed 30 formerly incarcerated women about prison foodways in order to build knowledge about their lived experience of incarceration. All of the participants in this study had been imprisoned at the same women’s correctional facility in New England (United States). I recruited participants, using convenience sampling, from a community-based nonprofit that provides postincarceration housing and reentry services to men and women in an urban area. In accordance with the approved Institutional Review Board protocol, I administered written informed consent to all respondents; participants were compensated US$30 for their time and expenses. The sample was racially diverse: 12 white, 13 black, and 5 Latina. No information about economic status or class was collected. The majority (n = 20) were between the ages of 25 and 45, with 7 over 45 and 3 under 25. Seven of the women had been incarcerated only 1 time, 12 had been incarcerated 2 or 3 times, and the rest (n = 11) had served from 5 to 32 sentences. For 21, the controlling offense for their most recent incarceration was drug related.
All of the interviews, which lasted approximately 90 min, were digitally recorded and transcribed. The data collection instrument was a 14-item semistructured interview that asked about food and eating experiences in different parts of the prison, food preferences, and cooking practices. Using a standpoint epistemological framework, the experience of these women “grounded” the inquiry: “Standpoint means beginning in the actualities of people’s lives as they experience them” (Smith, 1996, p. 172). Each primary question had a series of probes that asked how, where, and by/with whom food was acquired, prepared, and shared. While interview questions focused on the participants’ most recent incarceration, women who had served multiple terms also drew on experiences from their previous incarcerations.
In addition to conducting all of the interviews, I transcribed the interviews, using this process as an opportunity to identify emerging themes and adjust the interviews to incorporate and further explore preliminary findings (Bird, 2005). I then used qualitative data analysis software (NVivo) to code and organize the data using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The study’s thematic analysis included the following steps: familiarizing myself with the data (listening, reading, and memo writing, including matrix development); generating initial codes; applying, editing, and consolidating codes; organizing and reviewing themes to generate findings (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 2002). To strengthen the trustworthiness and applicability of study findings, I kept careful notes about my analytic decisions, solicited feedback and support from colleagues throughout the analysis process, and discussed initial findings with another group of formerly incarcerated women (Patton, 2002).
Findings: Prison Foodways Feed Relationships Inside and Out
Analysis of the participants’ prison foodways narratives suggests how incarcerated women used food systems to maintain, interpret, and construct their relationships and social networks with people inside and outside the prison. Primary prison foodways included the cafeteria, where breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served at no cost, the commissary, where inmates could order up to US$50 of snack food per week, and the illicit preparation and consumption, in the housing units, of food smuggled from the kitchen or cafeteria. Money for commissary was a central mechanism through which participants experienced support, or lack thereof, from people in the community. The participants’ range of reactions about receiving money for commissary reflected a diversity of standpoints. Similarly, women understood food exchanges among inmates in different ways. Internal foodways were used to construct relationships and social networks within the prison.
Food and Inmate Relationships With People on the Outside
In the United States, there are three ways that the nonincarcerated friends and family of inmates can participate in prison foodways. One, correctional institutions may have vending machines in the visiting rooms, allowing guests to buy snacks to share and eat with inmates (Tewksbury & DeMichele, 2005). Two, family members may be occasionally allowed to spend the night and cook with inmates in trailers with kitchens inside the prison (Comfort, 2008). Three, people on the outside may be able to send commissary money to incarcerated people and/or order food packages that are mailed from an authorized vendor to the inmate. The facility where participants of this study served time did not have vending machines nor did it allow for overnight visits or food packages. The only way that outside kin could participate in prison food systems was by sending money for commissary.
Received Money for Commissary
Nineteen (19) of the 30 women whom I interviewed described receiving consistent financial assistance for commissary from people in the community. These funds could be used to purchase food, hygiene, and/or writing supplies from the prison store (commissary). While participants reported purchasing hygiene products first, once they were stocked up on these supplies, the bulk of their expenditures were on food. Typical contributions ranged from US$20 to US$50 every 2 weeks. In this small sample, external financial assistance did not vary by race or age. For some, this money sent for commissary was understood as a mechanism to experience and measure social support. P8 described being “spoiled” by family during a prior sentence when they sent her US$100/week: When I would get commissary … two shopping brown bags, filled to the top, and tip that over on my bunk. It would fill my whole bunk up … ‘Cause I was spoiled and I had that money at that time, I had family doing that, sending me 100 bucks a week. (P8)
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If I know that they need it. If I’m close to you. For instance, there’s one lady up there that is like family to me. She’s done slept at my mother’s house, she’s done ate at my mother’s kitchen table. Yes. If I get a few extra dollars, I’ll send her maybe 10 or 20 dollars. Because somebody did it for me. (P24)
While P8 delighted in the two bags of family support, participants’ reactions to money sent in from the outside were often more ambivalent. Feelings of gratitude and support were accompanied by shame and guilt. P27 expressed remorse about siphoning her family’s resources: They got their own problems out here … I didn’t really want to bother asking her [grandmother] for money, but that was the only person that I knew that would send me money. So she’ll send me $50 every month, which I appreciated it a lot. (P27) All’s I did was ask my mother if she could send me $20 [one-time] ‘cause she had my kids. And I’m the one that relapsed. This is my mess and I couldn’t ask … To me, that food could be for my kids to have food in their mouths. I love my kids so much. (P30)
Did not Receive Money for Commissary
Eleven (11) women in the sample reported not receiving any money from the outside during their most recent incarceration. Their explanations for this lack of support varied. Over half of these women (n = 6) were simply incarcerated for too short a time to receive money from the outside: “I said, don’t send any money ‘cause I am leaving in two weeks, I don’t need it” (P5). Lack of financial support, however, could not be entirely explained by logistics, even for those with short sentences. For many women, having no money sent in was an indication of a weak and impoverished social network: “I didn’t have no money and I didn’t have nobody to send me no money” (P11). Other women suggested that friends and family had resources but withheld support because they “got tired of me going” (P22). P15 said that “no one” in her family visited or sent money to her because they found her behavior “shameful.” P18 attributed her parents’ lack of financial support to their distrust of her and ignorance about the prison systems: “My parents didn’t know to send commissary … they just thought I was going to buy drugs or something in jail.” In short, the unwillingness of families to send money for commissary reflected the deteriorated state of these relationships.
In sum, commissary money from the outside, or lack thereof, could be a reflection of the strength of the inmates’ social networks and their relationships with people on the outside. Family and friends used commissary deposits to provide or withhold social support. Women’s reaction to this money (or lack of money) varied, including pride, gratitude, guilt, shame, and resentment. Mothers constructed their decisions to limit or decline outside support as an exhibit of their dedication to their children. In these ways, participants’ narratives about commissary money from family and friends in the community provided insight into their relationships.
Food and Inmate Relationships Inside
Just as commissary revealed the nature and strength of inmate relationships with people on the outside, prison foodways were used to negotiate social relationships and networks inside the prison. Women’s power over their peers and location within the inmate hierarchy was determined, in part, by their foodways knowledge, skills, and resources. In addition, the participants’ narratives described how they used foodways to negotiate and construct individual relationships.
Foodways Knowledge and Skills
Women could use foodways knowledge and skills to earn the respect of their peers. Usually, the women with the most foodways knowledge and skills were old timers, women who were serving long sentences, or had been frequently incarcerated. Participants recalled with great appreciation the veterans who taught them how to manage prison foodways: to cook, hoard, smuggle, and order commissary: “I was like, “How the f*** do they do the rice in the bag? … My roommate … was straight … she taught me how to cook … how to order my commissary” (P14). Teaching newly arrived inmates about food was just one element of a larger education about how to manage incarceration that peers could impart: “[Cellmate cooked] Rice, potato balls with the potato chips and stuff like that … she cooked a lot of good things … [She taught me] How to be strong. How to live away from your kids” (P19). While P19 stated that this cellmate who prepared food for her did not “ask for anything” in exchange, others reported that cooks would trade their culinary talents for food, that is, were allowed to share in the dishes they prepared without contributing any ingredients.
Similarly, P20’s description of her tenure as the head cook for the cafeteria illustrated how social power could be derived from foodways skills. P20, a 43-year-old African American woman who served 11 years for manslaughter, worked in the kitchen throughout her sentence and was eventually promoted to head cook. In this position, she strove to make the food as palatable as possible, and her efforts were rewarded with prestige, peer recognition, and self-pride. They know who I was because I didn’t treat them like they was an outcast. I was the same person who they are. I’m an inmate, just like them. When I was on the tier, they used to be like, “[NAME], this was good. It tasted real good. We know when you’re in the kitchen” and stuff like that because I put seasoning and stuff on the food. (P20)
Foodways Resources
Another food-related pathway to social status and respect was through the control of food resources. A consistent influx of commissary money was not only an indicator of strong relationships on the outside, as described previously, but could also be a tool for building social position within the prison. Participants reported that women with commissary supplies could trade this food for services from other inmates, including hair styling, sex, artwork, and letter writing. Another way to acquire food resources and social power was through prison employment. Some women who worked in the kitchen and as tier workers (charged with cleaning and other maintenance tasks in the housing units) described using these positions to steal supplies and move them through the prison. This illicit behavior brought food into the housing units and was a central part of the prison foodways system. Inmates relied on these items and women who were willing to facilitate these illicit transactions could earn social stature.
Tier workers, for example, could smuggle food while delivering cafeteria food trays in secured units and traveling between housing units. They also siphoned off cleaning supplies, including the trash bags used to store, transport, and cook food. P17 described how her cellmate, who was a tier worker, consistently brought her the food and coffee she needed to manage her migraines. While P17 did not report being abused or taken advantage of by her supplier, there was a power differential in terms of food access that could have made that possible. Similarly, participants described how kitchen workers could expand their social network and influence by smuggling food from the kitchen and selling or sharing these stolen items on the tier: “If you worked in the kitchen, people were nice to you anyway because they knew you had access to a lot of things they would never be able to get” (P3). Serving as the tier’s food benefactor was not always easy. P14 reported being aggravated at times by the other women’s demands: They’re always asking you … they’re walking down the walkway and they know there’s a CO [correctional officer] right there at the booth. And here you go, asking me for sugar, here you go asking me for cheese, and then you loud about it! (P14)
Cooking Networks
In addition to shaping the inmate hierarchies, foodways, in the form of illicit cooking groups, constructed and maintained social networks. The prison provided hot water in the housing units that could be used to prepare single serving noodle and rice dishes and hot beverages. All other cooking activities were prohibited, but group cooking projects that used hair dryers, radiators, and all kinds of smuggled and purchased foods were common. Cooking groups allowed inmates with limited resources to pool ingredients and supplies in order to create more elaborate dishes. These cooking groups were also an opportunity to build relationships: It all depends what you got. Like, “Oh, you got this? You got the meat? You got the soup? You got the chips?” You know—so everybody puts everything in and make a big … [you cook with] who you hang with or get along with or whatever. (P27)
Not all participants shared this enthusiasm for group cooking. For some, it was simpler to cook alone: “A lot of times you just cook a little soup for yourself. Put a little cheese in it or something, just to make it, whatever” (P26). Others specifically sought to avoid the drama and complexities of cooking with a group: I didn’t like mingling with people … They start to arguing and then over who put what in and who put more in and so I’d—to not be bothered with it—I’d usually cook by myself. I rarely, will rarely cook with people. I know how to make the stuff myself. I don’t need anybody else to make it for me. I can do the very same thing they’re doing. (P28) I don’t trust people’s hands. And there is a lot of people that cook together and I hate that …. I had my few, there was other bids I did … People that were clean, that you trust. That don’t touch themselves and pick their nose … I had a bunkie this time that, I wouldn’t touch anything that she … Because of her habits, just the way she was. (P8)
Cafeteria Networks
Another foodway through which inmates built and maintained inside relationships was the cafeteria. Both the walk to the cafeteria and the meal time itself offered opportunity for fellowship. “You look forward to chow time ‘cause that is the only time that you may be able to slide a note to somebody or say hello to somebody or catch ‘em in the walkway” (P11). There could be considerable jockeying to secure seating with specific company or, at least, be in the cafeteria at the same time as a friend. Women tried to line up before and after people in their unit who they got along with: “I tried to walk with people that I wanted to sit with” (P1). Those who wished to connect with women who lived outside their unit tried to be either first or last in line in order to sit at a table with women from the units called before/after their own. “One day I gotta be first, the next day I gotta be last … It’s like adding and subtracting … I can’t do it but there’s people that are … been there for years” (P8). P8’s comments hark back to the old timer/knowledge hierarchy that was explicated earlier. The ability to secure the correct place in line in order to maximize the social potential of cafeteria meals was a skill, like ordering commissary or cooking, attributed to veteran inmates.
Once inmates were seated in the cafeteria, time was short and conversations were, theoretically, confined to each table of six: “You were only allowed to talk to people that were in your table. We weren’t allowed to cross-talk, but everybody did it” (P1). Given that most women were unable to determine who they sat with, they ate with whomever they happened to land: “Out of the six people that you sit at the table with, some of them are from your tier, some of ‘em aren’t. The girls were always nice. If they didn’t eat it, they shared it” (P17). While there were some complaints about other people’s table manners, P17’s characterization of the other women as “always nice” was common. Sharing was a courtesy which was regularly extended, even though it was prohibited. P29’s cafeteria experience went beyond this typical coexistence, developing into a sense of “home:” You might see somebody you know and get to communicate, shoot the shit, as they say. Make you feel a little, at home. Or just, someone that you know very well that you can sit and laugh and eat with. Or, when I was there, we had a group that would eat together every day … We sat together and that was our little communication, get together time … just started talking and a lot of us were doing the same thing at the time before we got busted. Before we got arrested and incarcerated. We were running, getting high. And making a dollar the best way we can to get our drugs. And we just clicked. (P29)
Summary of Findings
These narratives describe ways in which prison foodways were used to build and negotiate relationships between participants and their friends and family in the community, and relationships among inmates. For the most part, participants appreciated receiving financial support for commissary from nonincarcerated friends and family and interpreted this money as a sign of support. Still, reservations were widespread about accepting money from relations struggling to make ends meet, especially when funds came from the caregivers of the participants’ children. To not receive money from the outside was largely understood as an expression of rejection, although there were participants who reframed lack of community income as an indicator of their own personal strength and capacity for independence. Among inmates, control of foodways knowledge, skills, and/or resources was a sign of strength that could translate into social power. Participants described cooking groups and cafeteria experiences as foodways through which inmates organized themselves and built relationships.
Discussion
Research has demonstrated a strong association between supportive social relationships and positive prisoner outcomes, especially for women. However, a paucity of qualitative data about the lived experience of female prisoners in the United States limits our ability to understand inmates’ relationships and the factors that sustain or undermine them. Using Smith’s (1987) feminist theory about the every day as problematic, this analysis of relationships and power starts with women’s descriptions of prison foodways. Participants’ narratives described how foodways constructed relationships and how relationships within and outside of the prison walls mediated their access to food. Their reactions to and descriptions of these systems were not uniform. For example, women constructed both financial support from outside kin and lack thereof as signs of social strength. Similarly, some women derived social satisfaction from group cooking in the prison’s housing units, while others perceived these activities as complicated and disadvantageous. These differences highlight the importance of standpoint and the diversity of experiences and reactions within groups.
Relationships Outside
Prison foodways have been constructed as a “daily painful reminder” of the incarcerated person’s separation from community life and “loved ones on the outside” (Ugelvik, 2011, p. 48). Food systems can serve to construct and reinforce the “prisonization” of the individual and her distance from the community (Clemmer, 1940). However, this qualitative data offer another view of prison foodways that challenges incarcerated women’s master status as prisoners (Maidment, 2007). In their narratives about commissary, women constructed themselves as mothers, daughters, and friends. Given that wages for prison work started at 75 cents per day, or approximately US$4.00 per week, two commissary bags filled to the top, as P8 described, were an indication of external support. In this way, commissary food becomes a barometer for inmates’ relationships with outside kin: A generous supply of snacks in an inmate’s locker announces that she is somebody to someone on the outside, a daily reminder of her nonincarcerated self. Similarly, an empty locker could construct a maternal self for a woman who has chosen to forgo external support in order to boost the resources that are available to her children. In this scenario, the empty locker is a symbol of her devotion that brings the child, in a figurative sense, inside the woman’s cell. This analysis suggests prison commissary, or lack thereof, may be understood as a sign of connection to a nonincarcerated self and an enactment of relationships with kin on the outside.
Relationships Inside
The complexity of inmate foodways and the motivation for prisoners to engage in these food activities, which are usually illicit, has been a subject of inquiry and speculation. On a material level, informal systems of inmate cooking are understood as an attempt to create food that is more palatable than, or at least different form, cafeteria fare (Cate, 2008; Thomas, 2008). On a more analytical basis, inmate foodways have been constructed as a form of resistance against institutional power (Godderis, 2006a; Thomas, 2008; Ugelvik, 2011; Valentine & Longstaff, 1998). Inmate food activities, especially cooking, are also interpreted as identity work, allowing inmates a platform to enact gender, race, and ethnicity (Cate, 2008; Earle & Phillips, 2012; Ugelvik, 2011).
While all of these themes—boredom, resistance, and identity—could find traction in these narratives, this analysis highlights the ways in which incarcerated women used foodways to construct and negotiate relationships with each other. Participants reported imparting foodways knowledge, skills, and resources and learning from others. While there were material benefits to be derived from sharing food information and supplies, establishing oneself as talented and wise within the inmate hierarchy and making connections with other human beings were also valued. The wise woman character in these participants’ food stories contrasts slightly with Ugelvik’s (2011) “smart prisoner” who impressed peers with his ability to manipulate and evade prison food regulations without necessarily sharing the bounty of his clever actions. Smuggling and cooking activities allowed women to care for each other, build social networks, and be known among their peers. This interpretation does not reject the construction of these actions as resistance, but rather endorses a multiplicity of meanings and motivations to better understand prison life.
Limitations
The small sample size and use of convenience sampling from a single site limit the generalizability of these findings. In addition, accuracy of recollections may have been compromised for women who were incarcerated on multiple occasions.
Research, Policy, and Clinical Implications: Understand and Ameliorate Prison Foodways
These findings demonstrate the central and complicated roles that prison foodways play in constructing and negotiating prisoners’ relationships with people on the outside and other inmates. This description of everyday prison life can inform research, clinical practice, and correctional policy in order to maximize the positive potential of these relationships.
Research Implications
The prominent role of incarceration in contemporary U.S. society demands comprehensive review and consideration of correctional systems. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are required to understand the impact of the prison on inmates, staff, and communities. While there was a significant investment in qualitative prison studies during the 1960s and 1970s, the research pendulum has lingered in the quantitative sphere during the more recent past and present (Hedderman et al., 2011; Simon, 2000; Zaitzow & Thomas, 2003). This analysis underscores the value of ethnography and interviews about prison life, and prison foodways in particular, in building knowledge about corrections. Future research should continue to elicit prisoner’s voices and everyday worlds. Elaborating on the subject of prison food, using social network analysis to collect and map with whom prisoners eat could further explicate prison relationships and culture. Beyond food, projects that solicit stories about quotidian women’s health issues like menstruation and incontinence, could offer insight and detail about daily life on the inside.
Clinical Implications
Knowledge about prison foodways and the relationships constructed by these systems may help clinicians conduct psychosocial histories, build rapport, and recommend plans of care for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people by more fully recognizing everyday prison experiences. Social work is committed to meeting clients where they are and the description of prison foodways provided by this study offers a rich description of incarcerated terrain. Further, clinicians can use questions about prison foodways to make specific inquiries about their clients’ incarcerated experiences and relationships. This analysis demonstrates that formerly incarcerated people can readily recall their prison foodways experiences and that information about these activities builds knowledge about their lives.
These findings also highlight the exaggerated role of prison commissary in maintaining relationships between inmates and people on the outside and in building relationships among inmates. People in the community, who are often surviving with limited resources, may feel obliged to send funds to prison in order to connect with their incarcerated kin. Clinicians and community-based organizations can reduce the importance of commissary funds to these relationships by promoting alternative, nonfinancial ways to demonstrate support. Assistance with letter writing, transportation programs to facilitate visits, and advocacy to reduce the cost of inmate phone calls are examples of ways in which social workers can promote noncommissary support. Similarly, prison counselors and administrators might consider offering more programs through which inmates can positively connect with each other to decenter the role of illicit foodways in these relationships. For example, research has found that formal prison-based projects, like HIV education programs, can offer an alternative to informal inmate networks by building inmate–inmate and inmate–staff collaboration and trust (Collica, 2012).
Policy Implications
Participants used financial contributions to their commissary accounts from family and friends, who were often overextended themselves, to purchase hygiene supplies and food. Inmates’ access to commissary funds, or lack thereof, reflected their relationships with people in the community and factored into their position within the prison’s social hierarchy. The following policy changes would promote inmates’ economic independence, reduce pressure on relations in the community to fund commissary accounts, and minimize the economic power differential between inmates.
Provide simple snacks for inmates as part of the prison meal plan to allow all inmates access to food between meals, regardless of their financial resources.
Set a “living” wage for inmate workers: Participants reported that the prison wages were barely enough to make ends meet. Without a living wage, inmates may engage in illicit foodways and/or become overreliant on support from home and others inmates.
Finally, these findings describe how participants used prison foodways and cooking groups to construct and negotiate their peer networks. Prison policy prohibits much of the inmate cooking and food exchanges that participants described using to build relationships. The construction of these activities as illegal forces inmates’ social organization underground, restricting the potential benefits of these groups, and allowing abuses to go unchecked. Altering institutional policy to permit some forms of collective cooking could facilitate development of prosocial activities and relationship. For example, providing basic cooking tools on the tier and/or creating shared kitchen spaces where inmates could collaborate on food projects.
Just under half (43%) of the people released from prison in the United States return to prison or jail within 3 years (Pew Center on the States, 2011). Breaking this costly cycle of recidivism requires examination of the prison experience and the ways in which prison life supports or inhibits desistance from crime and postincarceration success. This qualitative study analyzed prison foodways to shed light on prison life by examining the everyday activities that Smith (1987) constructs as central to understanding the actuality of women’s lives. Consistent with feminist theory, these foodways narratives center the importance of women’s interpersonal relationships and caregiver identities (Stanley, 1990). Research about incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women has demonstrated the positive impact of these types of relationships on social and criminogenic outcomes. Opportunities to strengthen such bonds should be encouraged, not discouraged. This analysis about the role of prison foodways on prisoners’ relationships suggests the need for greater understanding about these quotidian activities, exploration of how modification of prison food behavior could change prison life and inmate relationships, and research about the impact of prison foodways experiences on life after prison.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project described was supported by the City University of New York Graduate Center's Doctoral Student Research Grant program and Award Numbers T32MH020031 and P30MH062294 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the City University of New York, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, the National Institute of Mental Health, or the National Institutes of Health.