Captive Consumers

Hunger, Violence, and Inequality in American Prison Food

Much of what happens inside Americas prisons remains hidden from public view, and the food doled out to incarcerated people is no exception. In Captive Consumers, Chin Jou exposes a system of mistreatment and scandal surrounding prison food: across the country, those behind bars live with chronic hunger, eat foods contrary to their religious beliefs and medical needs, and develop foodborne illnesses at alarming rates. At the same time, corrections systems and prison food services weaponize nutritional claims to protect themselves from charges that the incarcerated are starving.
Using a wealth of sources from untapped historical records to prison newspapers, Jou excavates the voices of the incarcerated and shows that prison food dehumanizes the imprisoned, compounds racial and class inequalities, and induces more violenceultimately making carceral institutions more dange