chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 5 minutes ago, Genie said: Yeah absolutely. Of course, for many/most people it’s far worse being in prison. For some though, it’s not really much of a deterrent. Once released do a bit of dealing, bit of shoplifting, maybe a bit of fraud. Worst case you end up back with your mates with little to worry about. They have TVs, games consoles, pool tables, ping pong, mates, heat, food. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have these things, just that for some people it’s not too much of an issue being inside. It’s a whole topic in itself, prison culture and the con of the judicial system. You would imagine that all those coked up bankers and traders behind the crash would have reformed the system once they finished their ten year stretch alongside the black boys that stole a Ford Focus and ran a coke delivery service. I’d suggest that for some, prison can be a shelter from the chaos of outside. For some it’s a career risk or a career opportunity. For some it’s a chance to straighten out. For some it’s another circle down the plug hole to hell. Prison is failure for everyone involved. Not everyone will realise it, but it is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choffer Posted January 30, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted January 30, 2021 12 minutes ago, Genie said: They have TVs, games consoles, pool tables, ping pong, mates, heat, food. I’m not saying they shouldn’t have these things, just that for some people it’s not too much of an issue being inside. That’s true in some prisons but not the vast majority. Many prisoners are currently in a Victorian jail that looks the same now as it did when it was built, living 23 hours a day in a shoe box. Having visited the scrubs (not at her Majesty’s pleasure, I might add), I can confirm it’s 100% not butlins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 43 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: There will always be lots of stories about prisons. Many of them true. On balance, I’d rather be outside than inside. There are lots of things that can look like prisoner perks, where in reality, someone in authority, someone that got voted in on a law and order ticket, worked out its cheaper to give them a phone and a menu, than to staff a prison to proper levels. The food is horrific too, and the majority if not all prisons have been on a severe lockdown for most of the past 12 months with prisoners confined to their cells for up to 23.5 hours a day. You can argue they deserve that of course, at least for the most part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said: That’s not true, at least not in Bridgend nick anyway, they have to go collect their food and take it back to the cells, I know this for sure. It’s true in some prisons at the moment, due to covid. It’s bullshit about sending food back for a hotter meal. Food budget is worked out to the penny, there’s no reserve food for complaints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 30, 2021 Moderator Share Posted January 30, 2021 I'm sure Priti will come up with some sort of final solution to this problem eventually. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Just now, chrisp65 said: It’s true in some prisons at the moment, due to covid. It’s bullshit about sending food back for a hotter meal. Food budget is worked out to the penny, there’s no reserve food for complaints. There’s no choice and no room for complaint, even if you wanted to complain you’d do well to get the attention of a staff member to make the complaint. Again, this is how it is in Bridgend nick, unsure if same elsewhere, Bridgend is G4S run one. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 15 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said: That’s not true, at least not in Bridgend nick anyway, they have to go collect their food and take it back to the cells, I know this for sure. I can only relay what my father in law has mentioned about his experiences. I would guarantee 1000% he was being honest. I expect prison to prison it varies a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 2 hours ago, Genie said: I can only relay what my father in law has mentioned about his experiences. I would guarantee 1000% he was being honest. I expect prison to prison it varies a lot. Yeah absolutely, I only replied to demonstrate that it’s not across the board rather than trying to paint anyone out to be a liar. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 4 hours ago, Genie said: I can only relay what my father in law has mentioned about his experiences. I would guarantee 1000% he was being honest. I expect prison to prison it varies a lot. I’d be genuinely amazed if they can reject food and send for something hotter. That kitchen will be cleaning down and closing down as soon as the trolley leaves. There is no duty chef waiting for special requests, it’s mass, budget, catering by prisoners that are due back in their cell when they’ve finished the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 (edited) 8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I’d be genuinely amazed if they can reject food and send for something hotter. That kitchen will be cleaning down and closing down as soon as the trolley leaves. There is no duty chef waiting for special requests, it’s mass, budget, catering by prisoners that are due back in their cell when they’ve finished the job. I’ve never been in a prison to be able to comment with authority. This is how the conversation went: Hey Mark, hows the job going at the prison? Its pretty grim Ah right, not the holiday camp that they say the are then? No, not that, the job itself is grim. The prisoners have it very comfortable. TVs and games consoles in their rooms and I’m installing landline phones for them in every cell. They order what they want to eat from a menu, some even send it back for a replacement if it’s not hot enough. He’s genuinely not the kind of person to make stuff up for effect at all. I’d bet my life on the fact that he saw it if he said it happened. Maybe they just give it a blast in a microwave. Edited January 30, 2021 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 (edited) I think the budget for food was previously set by central government, and was something like £2.10 (don’t quote me, that’s from memory) per day. When it was de regulated many establishments took this as an opportunity to spend less. Many found they could supply 3 meals a day for £1.80. At £1.80, you are getting a sachet of off brand cereal for breakfast, with a slice of bread and jam. You pick this up the evening before, you’re not getting out to get breakfast. Lunch, unbranded white sliced bread sandwiches and off brand crisps, an orange, then a hot meal in the evening. There is a responsibility to provide 2,300 calories per day. If you see biscuits, or fruit juice (or deodorant, or shampoo), the prisoner has bought that themselves. Credit for the phone also has to be bought. One of the reasons so many people in prison declare themselves muslim, or vegetarian, or whatever, is because they have worked out that the absolute base meal is the standard one they have honed that down to the last penny and the last calorie. So if you can legitimately claim a special diet then your food will be a click up from the base. Let’s agree that cold food might be put in the microwave. Websites like doing time are good for a no frills statement of fact on prison life. Oh, also, in the interest of balance Clink does fantastic work. Edited January 30, 2021 by chrisp65 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 I understand the averaging of the meals cost but I doubt it’s literally split like that. If a meal was NOK for whatever reason I’m sure it would be swapped. Same as schools, it’s calculated to a penny, but if someone drops it on the floor they don’t say “sorry Timmy, no dinner for you today now”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Its not my place to tag them but a poster in off topic has a brother in prison. He may be able to give real world insight. Or he nay not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Just now, Seat68 said: Its not my place to tag them but a poster in off topic has a brother in prison. He may be able to give real world insight. Or he nay not. He posted already. I think it’s fair to say that the prison experience varies a lot from prison to prison. I don’t quite understand the comment though that if a meal is returned there isn’t money in the budget for a replacement. It’s not literally that restrictive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 The original claim was that prisoners can send food back and get a replacement if food wasn’t hot enough. That, next to the ordering from a menu, was set up to give some ‘life of Riley’ impression. They cannot get a replacement meal simply for food that doesn’t meet their personal exacting standards. They do order from menu’s. Just like a hospital patient would. A typical budget for a hospital patient would be about five times that of a prisoner. Who here would like a diet worth one fifth of hospital food, day after day after day. Once the food wheels out of the kitchens, that’s the end of it. Nobody hangs around to rustle up an extra dinner for an unexpected guest. If your dinner is lost in some way, you will get replacement food. It might be a sandwich pack, or noodles you can boil up yourself. I’m not sure many would reject a meal for not being hot enough, knowing the replacement is a cheese sandwich or off brand noodles. I could be wrong. I have not been inside every prison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 (edited) 28 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I’m not sure many would reject a meal for not being hot enough, knowing the replacement is a cheese sandwich or off brand noodles. Me neither. From what I’ve seen of prison on TV the meals are made in bulk (like at school). Like a big trough of mash, chips, veg, meat etc. I’ve not seen these 1 off dedicated one time only, 1 chance meals where every pea is allocated to an inmate that you’re mentioning. It might be £2 a head a day, but that just generates the annual budget for food. It’s not literally £2 a day, every day per person. If your Spagetti Bolognese ends up on the floor you don’t go hungry until the next day when the £2 restarts. I said my close relative had seen prisoners send their meals back when they arrived cold. I said they probably just reheated them in a microwave. I also said prison experience will vary a lot from institution to institution. I’m not sure why you’re trying to pick holes in that. If I’d have said prisoners are told to eat cold food or go hungry you’d have been annoyed they were not being treated well enough and they were entitled to a hot meal (probably the tories fault). Edited January 30, 2021 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 Well this wasn’t a rabbit hole I was expecting! The original suggestion, was they could reject food and get a replacement. Which kind of suggested to me, a suggestion of a nice easy life, with the xbox and the menu and the in cell phone. The microwave idea came later, and is likely a good call. In some places I’d guess the meals are individually plated and taken to the wings on trays, on trolleys. Twenty prisoners, twenty plates on twenty trays. In others, the majority, I’d guess they have a servery and just like the school canteen, you queue for your scoop of chips and your scoop of peas and your three slices of ham. On that system, there can be food left over. That’s the food that the new guy on the wing gets. When you arrive, week one, you haven’t filled in your menu, so just like a hospital visit, you either get what the last person ordered, or what’s left at the end (you go last if you’re new). I don’t quite see how one person can have a cold meal from the servery with the hot plates? How would that happen? If it’s all cold, if the hot cabinet or the hot tray has failed, there is not the mechanism to find twenty new hot meals. Unless you’re the last guy having what was left. But then, if you’re the last guy having what was left... Right now, the wing servery idea is less good as nobody wants to queue for food served by four people in a small room. If its twenty plated meals and one is cold, they don’t carry a couple more just in case one is rejected by the wing’s own Gordon Ramsey. He’ll get a sandwich, or noodles if he can’t stomach the sausage. But I don’t know the arrangements in every wing of every prison, it could actually be a true anecdote, I could be doing him a disservice. It’s just not something I’d recognise from my limited knowledge. We can probably agree to differ on this one and move on to something else? It’s the fault of all governments that always underfund the MoJ. Red and blue. It’s not a vote winner, nicer prisons. I’m not just being contrary with you, I’m really not. I’m just prickly about stories of easy prison life. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 1 minute ago, chrisp65 said: Well this wasn’t a rabbit hole I was expecting! The original suggestion, was they could reject food and get a replacement. Which kind of suggested to me, a suggestion of a nice easy life, with the xbox and the menu and the in cell phone. The microwave idea came later, and is likely a good call. In some places I’d guess the meals are individually plated and taken to the wings on trays, on trolleys. Twenty prisoners, twenty plates on twenty trays. In others, the majority, I’d guess they have a servery and just like the school canteen, you queue for your scoop of chips and your scoop of peas and your three slices of ham. On that system, there can be food left over. That’s the food that the new guy on the wing gets. When you arrive, week one, you haven’t filled in your menu, so just like a hospital visit, you either get what the last person ordered, or what’s left at the end (you go last if you’re new). I don’t quite see how one person can have a cold meal from the servery with the hot plates? How would that happen? If it’s all cold, if the hot cabinet or the hot tray has failed, there is not the mechanism to find twenty new hot meals. Unless you’re the last guy having what was left. But then, if you’re the last guy having what was left... Right now, the wing servery idea is less good as nobody wants to queue for food served by four people in a small room. If its twenty plated meals and one is cold, they don’t carry a couple more just in case one is rejected by the wing’s own Gordon Ramsey. He’ll get a sandwich, or noodles if he can’t stomach the sausage. But I don’t know the arrangements in every wing of every prison, it could actually be a true anecdote, I could be doing him a disservice. It’s just not something I’d recognise from my limited knowledge. We can probably agree to differ on this one and move on to something else? It’s the fault of all governments that always underfund the MoJ. Red and blue. It’s not a vote winner, nicer prisons. I’m not just being contrary with you, I’m really not. I’m just prickly about stories of easy prison life. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 See, I thought the stomaching sausage was the go to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 I’ll ask him tomorrow if he made it up to look cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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