In news related to this post from last month, the New York Times now reports that prisons in states around the country are cutting costs in this strapped economy by depriving prisoners of basic meals. Prisons have exploited the gray areas in the law about requirements for feeding prisoners three times a day, applying it only according to the letter of the law (in Texas, to county inmates, not to state prisoners) and cutting meals in cases of legal ambiguity. These meal reductions have class implications (prisoners whose families cannot send them money to supplement their meals with snacks from the commissary must just go hungry). They also show the lack of bounds to the truth of this statement from the executive director of the Texas Inmate Families Association: “it’s really easy to take things away from inmates.”

This statement from Senator John Whitmire, Democrat and chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, is one indication of how inured to human rights issues in prisons policy and lawmakers have become: “If they don’t like the menu,” he said, “don’t come there in the first place.”