For ex-convict Jackson Allum, pranks on fellow prisoners and portions of hot wings were the highlights of his mealtimes in prison, which were otherwise largely made up of frozen sandwiches and tins of tuna.
He knows the prison menus like the back of his hand; the NSW man, who is using a pseudonym to protect his identity, recently spent two years in jails of varying security levels across the state, including Silverwater Correctional Complex, and Bathurst, Grafton, Junee, and Glen Innes correctional centres.
He was just one of the 43,000 people behind bars in Australia and, irrespective of their appetites, this is what and how they eat.
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WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Food preparations in Goulburn Correctional Centre’s kitchens
Low-budget airline food is about the calibre of the fare Australian inmates are served in prison, Allum told 7NEWS.com.au.
Similar to the aluminium trays doled out above the clouds, those distributed behind bars are prepped and filled en-masse by fellow inmates working in kitchens where food is immediately frozen after it is cooked.
Day on plate with an inmate
Allum said each day in prison began with a humble breakfast of cereal or bread, setting the no-frills theme for the rest of the day’s eating.
For lunch on weekdays it was two (sometimes not quite) defrosted sandwiches, with rotating fillings of corned beef, tuna, ham and cheese, chicken, schnitzel, egg, and Vegemite, he said.
For weekend lunches, sandwiches were swapped out for similarly defrosted sausage rolls or pigs in a blanket (frankfurts in pastry).
Then when prisoners were locked back into their cells, they were left with a rotation of oven-heated frozen meals such as curries, stews and various iterations of meat-and-three-veg for dinner. If that lock-in is set for 3pm, that’s your window for eating your dinner while it’s hot.
“They sound appetising, when you hear it you’re like ‘beef with black bean sauce, that sounds pretty good,’ but it’s not,” Allum said.
“But it’s not slop either. You know in the movies when they give you grey slop on a tray, it’s not like that.”
NSW Corrections Minister Geoff Lee largely agrees with this assessment.
“Inmates certainly aren’t eating like kings, but they are provided with a variety of meal options on a rotating schedule that meet their needs, ensuring they’re well-fed and ready to participate in meaningful activities within prison,” Lee said.
The highlight of the menu rotation was a portion of “devil wings,” Allum said. “Obviously it wasn’t much because you only get three tiny (chicken) wings and most of the guys are big. But they were really delicious, it was like real meat.”
There is also some scope for certain inmates to take meal matters into their own hands.
A South Australian Department Corrective Services spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au: “Prisoner food varies between prisons and security levels.
“Prisoners in low security areas meal plan, budget, buy and cook their meals themselves.”
Onions, tuna and prison pranks
In maximum security prisons— not to be confused with supermax facilities where prisoners are only allowed out of cells for an hour each day — inmates can get creative with appliances such as rice cookers and kettles in their cells and can also purchase limited ingredients.
“You can’t just survive on (the provided meals) alone,” Allum said, explaning inmates in lower security prison areas “supplement it” with cans of tuna and packets of instant noodles available for purchase in weekly “buy-ups”.
“I never ate canned tuna outside of jail,” Allum told 7NEWS.com.au, adding he never really liked sandwiches either.
“But once you get there that’s like the best source of protein, so a lot of people eat tuna, because you’re gonna be hungry.”
In some minimum security prisons such as Glenn Innes, groups of about 10 inmates can live together in units rather than cells, and can fill out forms to purchase up to $30 of perishables which Allum said “was quite amazing, actually”. It also allowed for certain hijinks.
“When you’ve been living with people for a while, you start doing pranks on each other,” Allum said.
“There was one time with a guy in our unit, we threw out his (buy up) form which he had filled in and filled out another one with his details, and we just ordered him $30 worth of onions.
“When he went to pick it up a few days later he was so confused, everyone started cracking up, everyone was in line waiting for him to pick it up.”
He took it well and the boys felt bad afterwards, sharing their meat and vegetables in exchange for onions and a good laugh.
“For a month or two none of us needed to buy onions,” Allum said.
It’s a story of inmates getting along. But that isn’t always the case, which is one of the main reasons why food privileges work on a case-by-case basis.
In some cases, food and cooking privileges can even turn out to have fatal consequences.
Convicted murderer John Walsh was serving two life sentences in Sydney’s Long Bay prison in 2017 when he put a sandwich press from the jail’s aged care unit — which housed elderly and frail offenders — in a pillowcase before fatally bashing his cellmate Frank Townsend with it.
Social and nutritional benefits
The meals served within Australian correctional systems are largely made by the inmates themselves, a practice which equips them with a range of post-parole qualifications.
The Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre in Windsor, one of the largest prison kitchens in Australia, employs 90 inmates who cook 3.9 million inmate meals each year. This equates to more than 60,000 frozen dinners being sent out each week.
At Long Bay Correctional Complex, Reg Boys Bakery employs 45 inmates “who churn out 25,000 loaves of bread each week,” NSW Corrective Services said.
“It’s good to see (inmates) have pride in their work — it can be challenging to get them to work but, once they’re there, they absolutely thrive,” Goulburn Correctional Centre food services overseer Nigel Bill said.
Across states, meal plans vary but are determined by Australian dietary guidelines, with all meals legally “required to have adequate nutrition,” NSW Corrective Services said.
In Tasmania, seasonal menus set for summer and winter are rotated every six weeks, while in Queensland “the menu is reviewed every two years,” a Queensland Corrective Services spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au.
Alternative meals are also available across the board for inmates with different cultural, religious and medical needs — only vegan meals fail to meet the required dietary guidelines.
In South Australia there are even moves to expand inmates’ eating choices. The recent Improving Nutrition in South Australian Prisons project at Mobilong Prison which offered prisoners a second lunch and dinner choice “successfully improved nutrition” in the jail, SA Department for Correctional Services told 7NEWS.com.au
“The success and learnings of the trial at Mobilong will be shared across all SA prisons, with the aim of having all state-run prisons offering menu choices by July 2023.
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Prison food across Australia: The meals prepared and eaten by the country’s 43,000 inmates - 7NEWS
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