The Big Business of Bad Prison Food

Feeding incarcerated people has become big business as states and counties outsource their food service operations. The food behemoth Aramark (which also services colleges, hospitals, and sports stadiums), as well as smaller corporations like Summit Correctional Services and Trinity Services Group, have inked contracts in the last decade worth hundreds of millions of dollars in prisons and jails across the country. Privatization of prison food isn’t a new phenomenon, but it’s growing substantially. In the last decade, several states quickly jettisoned private contracts after lawsuits revealed unsanitary and, frankly, disgusting conditions. In 2021, Mississippi canceled a contract with Aramark after a federal lawsuit described “spoiled, rotten, molded or uncooked” food, contaminated with rat, bird or insect feces.