The Cost of Kosher Food to the US Department of Corrections
Kosher food is a subject that is not often discussed in large part because people don’t tend to know that much about it and what they do know is hopelessly vague. If you asked the average person what kosher food was; the best you’d probably get is that it was the food jews were permitted to eat and that the principle foodstuff on the forbidden list was pork.
General ignorance of what kosher food is and what it is not is a large part of the reason why kashruth – the religious laws by which the status of a food stuff is decided in Judaism – is not criticised as much as its Islamic equivalent Halal despite being for all practical purposes identical.
This lack of knowledge leads to the belief that somehow kosher food is ‘superior’ to non-kosher food – a contention that rabbinical authorities are more than happy to try and justify – (1) and there is no better example of the nonsense of this claim than in the kosher food supplied to the US prison system.
For example the average meal costs per day per prisoner for the state of Minnesota are between $1.20 and $3.00, (2) while in the state of California it costs $3.32 per day to feed each prisoner (3) and in the state of Florida it costs a mere $1.54 per day. (4)
That isn’t a lot of money, but bear in mind that the state of Texas for example spends circa $183.5 million per year on food for prisoners, (5) while the state of California spends circa $140 million per year on the same. (6)
Thus we can see that while the cost per prisoner is low; the amount of prisoners is huge and any increase in that cost per meal will disproportionately increase that budget.
This is where kosher food comes into the picture.
There have been a spate of lawsuits in recent years by prison inmates who aren’t actually jewish, but wish to keep kosher for different reasons such as being a ‘Messianic Jew’ – which is a Christian sect that pretends to be jews – or ‘conversion to Judaism’.
Conversion seems to account for the majority of such requests as is demonstrated by the fact that in the state of Texas some 900 inmates labelled themselves as jewish, while only 70 (i.e., 7.7 percent) wished to keep kosher, but yet some 90 non-jews were in the process of ‘converting’ to Judaism (i.e., an increase of 10 percent on the jewish population and an increase of 128 percent of the population requiring kosher food). (7)
Again this is a small number of people, but bear in mind that these 70 inmates cost the state of Texas some $88,000 per year to provide with kosher food (i.e. $3.44 per day), while it would cost another $8,000 just to set up such a program. (8) If those 90 prisoners in the process of converting to Judaism successfully convert then that jumps to total cost of $201,142.86 per year to feed kosher food a measly 160 inmates.
Texas is not alone either since as the New York Times wrote in 2014:
‘In Florida’s prison system, which faces a $58 million deficit, money is the easy answer for the battle against kosher food. The cost of three kosher meals in Florida is $7 a day, a big jump from the $1.54 for standard meals, Mr. Crews said. In New York State, where 1,500 inmates out of about 56,000 keep kosher, the cost of a kosher meal is $5 a person. In California, where some prisons have kosher kitchens, the price tag is $8, and the meals are served to 0.7 percent of about 120,000 inmates.’ (9)
Thus we can see that providing kosher food is expensive for much the same reason that providing vegan meals in prison is extremely expensive. (10)
Indeed vegan meals are technically kosher, because plant-based food is only non-kosher if there are insects on it. (11)
Interestingly the Idaho Department of Corrections has recognised this fundamental fact since 2009 and simply provided those inmates with a kosher diet requirement with vegan food, (12) while they reacted to the jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) and its additional dietary restrictions by feeding inmates requiring kosher food on fresh fruit and matzo donated by the local jewish community. (13)
Predictably the jews were upset about this, because this isn’t really about the need to fulfil a religious duty to keep kosher but rather about jewish comfort while they are in the prison system.
This was demonstrated in the case of combined class action lawsuits in 2017 by the ACLU and the jewish community against the Idaho Department of Corrections for ‘violation of religious liberties’ for not providing a correct kosher diet – even though the Idaho Department of Corrections did so –on the flimsy legal pretext that the vegan food wasn’t ‘designed or intended to be kosher’. (14)
To summarise; the ACLU is claiming that because vegan food is de facto kosher then it isn’t actually kosher, because it hasn’t been prepared and sealed in the presence of an observant jew. That is legal malfeasance of the first order, because jews outside of prison are permitted and even encouraged to assume that such food is kosher. (15)
So why cannot that rule be applied in prisons?
In short: it can be, but that would mean that convicted jewish criminals wouldn’t get the food that they want which is what the ACLU and the jewish community are actually upset about not that it supposedly ‘violates religious liberties’.
The fact that the ACLU and the jewish community won (16) can only be attributed to an incredibly ignorant or in some way biased judge. This is evidenced by the fact that the Federal Judge who made the ruling - Candy Wagahoff Dale – also struck down Idaho’s legislative ban on homosexual marriage in 2014. (17)
Is it a coincidence that Candy Wagahoff Dale though that the expression of religious liberties in banning homosexual marriages – but not homosexual partnerships or relationships – was no such thing, but then all of a sudden because the jews complain about their food being kosher but not having the religious stamp they want on it then it is an infringement of religious liberties.
I think not.
This is interesting precisely because the Idaho Department of Corrections were correct in their reading of kashruth, while the ACLU and the jewish community deliberately misrepresented the jewish law (halakhah) and general rabbinical consensus on the subject and yet still won.
Candy Wagahoff Dale also failed to take into account the fact that kosher certified food are also notoriously subject to fraud in order to maximise the higher profit margin with the least increase in production cost (18) and was recently seen in the case of a supplier of kosher food to Georgia’s Department of Corrections. (19)
A similar situation has prevailed in the state of Texas where an inmate named Max Moussazadeh – who claims to be a convert to Orthodox Judaism – in prison for the murder of a restaurant owner in 1993 - successfully sued the Texas Department of Corrections for not providing him with kosher food. (20)
Moussazadeh was then transferred to a separate prison after committing an unrelated infraction where he could purchase kosher food from the commissary but not at the dining hall. (21) He chose to do this and purchased food that wasn’t certified as kosher as well, which the Texas Department of Corrections used to argue that his commitment to keeping kosher was insincere. (22)
Unsurprisingly once Moussazadeh was released he dropped his law suit against the Texas Department of Corrections although his original judgement against them still stands. (23)
The cost of all this specialist provision is of course – as I pointed out earlier – substantial and these kinds of legal attacks on the US prison system to provide kosher food to those who want is a potential financial tsunami waiting to happen.
This is because – as I explained above – prisoners are prone to ‘convert’ to Judaism in order to get access to this food because it is generally of a higher quality than non-kosher food, because it is made in smaller batches and requires better quality ingredients without any cheap filler being used. (24)
The cost of a kosher meal to the California Department of Corrections is a whopping three times that of a normal meal, (25) while the Florida Department of Corrections suffers from a fourfold increase cost to provide kosher meals. (26)
When you combine this state of affairs with the wave of ‘interest in conversion to Judaism’ triggered by these rulings in favour of the prison of high quality kosher meals at significant additional cost per unit in both California and Florida. (27)
Then it hardly comes as surprise that the food bill in Florida alone quickly jumped an additional $2-3 million in 2016-2017 when a number of inmates decided - based upon the ‘Orange is the new Black’ television series – that they wanted to receive kosher food and began pretending to be jews. (28)
Thus we can see that there is a huge current cost to providing kosher food for the limited number of jews who want it, because of all the non-jews trying to jump on the bandwagon and the jewish-lead legal campaign to force the US prison system to provide certified kosher food to inmates will only lead to a large additional financial burden that will be to be borne by US taxpayers.
References
(1) For example: Victor Geller, Irwin Gordon, n.d., 'Kashruth', Rabbinical Council of America: New York, p. 3; Isidore Grunfeld, 1966, 'The Religious and Moral Basis of the Jewish Dietary Laws', 1st Edition, National Council of Shechita Boards: London, p. 12; Yacov Lipschutz, 1988, 'Kashruth: A Comprehensive Background and Reference Guide to The Principles of Kashruth', 1st Edition, Mesorah: New York, p. 27
(2) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/30/prison-food-spending-budget-cuts-minnesota
(3) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237
(4) https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/us/you-dont-have-to-be-jewish-to-love-a-kosher-prison-meal.html?mcubz=0
(5) http://www.houstonpress.com/news/texas-inmate-wins-right-to-kosher-meals-for-orthodox-jewish-prisoners-9324877
(6) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237
(7) http://www.houstonpress.com/news/texas-inmate-wins-right-to-kosher-meals-for-orthodox-jewish-prisoners-9324877
(8) Ibid.
(9) https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/us/you-dont-have-to-be-jewish-to-love-a-kosher-prison-meal.html?mcubz=0
(10) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237
(11) Geller, Gordan, Op. Cit., p. 20; although the strictest standard disagrees (see Pinchas Cohen, 2010, 'A Practical Guide to the Laws of Kashrut', 1st Edition, Maggid: Jerusalem, pp. 29-35) but in practice this isn’t ever going to be instituted in prisons.
(12) http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/article149377669.html; https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/idaho/articles/2017-05-09/jewish-idaho-inmates-take-legal-action-for-kosher-meals
(13) http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/boise/2017/may/10/idaho-faces-class-action-lawsuit-over-failure-provide-kosher-meals-jewish-prisoners/; http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/229486
(14) Ibid.
(15) Geller, Gordan, Op. Cit., p. 20; although the strictest standard disagrees (see Cohen, Op. Cit., pp. 29-35) but in practice this isn’t ever going to be instituted in prisons.
(16) http://archive.jta.org/2017/08/23/news-opinion/united-states/federal-judge-rules-idaho-prisoners-must-be-allowed-kosher-meals; http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/aug/27/under-court-order-idaho-prisons-agree-to-provide-k/
(17) http://takimag.com/article/the_week_that_perished_takimag_june_9_2014#axzz4sSlpDyn4
(18) Seymour Freedman, 1970, ‘The Book of Kashruth: A Treasury of Kosher Facts and Frauds’, 1st Edition, Bloch: New York, pp. 67-79
(19) http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/north-fulton-county/whistleblower-says-fulton-county-jail-food-vendor-misusing-inmates/596677760
(20) http://www.houstonpress.com/news/texas-inmate-wins-right-to-kosher-meals-for-orthodox-jewish-prisoners-9324877
(21) http://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2017/04/04/orthodox-jews-get-kosher-meals-texas-prisons; http://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article142613139.html
(22) http://www.jta.org/2017/04/05/news-opinion/united-states/texas-prison-inmate-drops-kosher-food-lawsuit
(23) Ibid; http://forward.com/fast-forward/368201/texas-ex-con-drops-kosher-food-lawsuit-after-release/
(24) http://www.houstonpress.com/news/texas-inmate-wins-right-to-kosher-meals-for-orthodox-jewish-prisoners-9324877; https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/us/you-dont-have-to-be-jewish-to-love-a-kosher-prison-meal.html?mcubz=0
(25) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237
(26) https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/us/you-dont-have-to-be-jewish-to-love-a-kosher-prison-meal.html?mcubz=0
(27) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237; https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/us/you-dont-have-to-be-jewish-to-love-a-kosher-prison-meal.html?mcubz=0
(28) http://www.laweekly.com/restaurants/how-prison-kitchens-feed-inmates-for-about-one-dollar-per-meal-8258237