Appeals court hears case over kosher food in Florida prisons

[Night Watchman]

Source: Associated Press

By CURT ANDERSON
Jul. 12, 2016 11:01 AM EDT

MIAMI (AP) — The state of Florida wants a federal appeals court to allow it to discontinue a kosher meals program in state prisons if its budget problems worsen.

An attorney for Florida told a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday the estimated $12.3 million cost of the program could become prohibitive if other budget needs arise. The state is appealing a decision by a lower court judge requiring that it provide kosher food to Jewish inmates and others who request it for religious reasons.

A U.S. Justice Department attorney countered that cost is not a compelling reason for the state to drop a federally required kosher food program. The Justice Department sued the state in 2012 over the issue.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2677fbe950694cff80c22194888ec278/appeals-court-hears-case-over-kosher-food-florida-prisons

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This story fascinates me, as I'm a firm believer in respect for people's rights, even when those people are incarcerated. Of course Jewish prisoners who keep kosher should HAVE kosher. But I'm wondering: Is there a corresponding halal program for Muslim inmates, most of whom are likely to be black?

[iandhr]

1. Kosher and Halal are pretty much the same thing.

[dkhbrit]

3. No, they're not

Totally different. We provide for both Halal and Kosher and the requirements are not the same at all.

[matt819]

4. There are similarities as well as differences

That said, the funny thing is that the differences in halal were probably instituted by early Muslims solely to make them different from the Jewish requirements.

[iandhr]

5. Really?

I'm Jewish but I don't keep kosher. I thought given both Jews and Muslims have restrictions on thinks like pork the rules would be similar.


Also I think I remember a Muslim friend tell me they were similar.

[EllieBC]

14. Kosher is more than just no pork.

It's no shellfish. Animals slaughtered by a shocket a Jewish butcher trained in shechitah). No mixing of meat and dairy at all (separate dishes, utensils, pots pans, mixing bowls.). Certain grain based breads must have a Jew present for some part of the baking process. Dairy is further broken down into Cholov Stam or Cholov Yisroel. Vegetables must be checked for bugs.

[iandhr]

15. I know all that.

I thought Halal was something similar.

Always good to learn new things.

[csziggy]

2. Apparently the same order included halal food for Muslim inmates

Miami-Dade Corrections Sued For Not Providing Halal Meals to Muslim Inmates
Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 12:56 p.m
<SNIP>
The controversy kicked off back in October 2014 when Miami-Dade Corrections changed its Faith-Based Meals Policy to recommend that Muslim inmates who requested halal meals instead be served food from the general menu.

The Department claims that their long-time volunteer Imam approved the general populations meals and claims they all meet halal requirements, but prisoners beg to differ.

<SNIP>

CAIR and the ACLU have advocated since January on behalf of Muslim inmates that the general population foods do not indeed meet halal requirements, and claims it's unfair that Jewish inmates have kosher options while Muslim inmates are relegated to the general population diet.

The suit follows nearly a decades long controversy involving religious meals in the Florida state prison system. The state abruptly ended its faith-based meal program in 2007 and after years of advocacy groups trying to reinstate the program, a lawsuit was filed. The state began serving kosher meals again in 2010, but earlier this year a court ruled that Florida prisons must not only serve kosher meals but also special meals for Muslim and Seventh-Day Adventists. The order prohibits the state from dropping the program again.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-corrections-sued-for-not-providing-halal-meals-to-muslim-inmates-7871337

Emphasis added by me.

[Cryptoad]

6. Hard to find any Kosher Hams in FL.

[melm00se]

7. compare/contrast between halal and kosher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Islamic_and_Jewish_dietary_laws

[Egnever]

8. Many inmates claim religious beliefs just to get kosher meals

the kosher meals are better.

I think legitimate religious beliefs should be accommodated when possible but the kosher meal thing has been abused for decades now.

Not sure how it can be solved however.

[freedom fighter jh]

9. I think they could solve it by making the kosher meals vegetarian.

An airline person told me once that they kosher meal and the vegetarian meal are the same in the air. This makes sense because most of the kosher rules have to do with meat. Kosher meat may be expensive; keeping meat and dairy separate may entail extra effort and therefore extra expense; but taking the meat out, it seems to me, can only make food cheaper. Of course you need protein substitutes, but beans are nutritious and cheap.

[eggplant]

12. Nope.

Kosher meals on flights are prepared separately under religious supervision, and then wrapped in an absurd amount of saran wrap, including the utensils to ensure that they remain kosher. None of those requirements exist for a vegetarian option.

[cstanleytech]

13. I think their point was that vegetarian meals might be cheaper to maintain for the prisoners

than any diet that contains meat and they could be right since regular meat is pretty pricey these days and I imagine that kosher meat isnt any cheaper plus such a switch might help the prisoners overall health.

[eggplant]

18. Agreed.

My previous comment was intended as a rebuttal to the airline meals comment only.

Replacing meat with alternative protein in the kosher meals would reduce their costs. The same is probably true of the meals served to the general population, of course.

[freedom fighter jh]

20. Yes, that is what I meant.

I wasn't thinking that veg is healthier, only that with some thought you can do nutritious veg cheap and it's easier to make that kosher.

[freedom fighter jh]

21. But this really happened to me.

I was looking for a veg meal for myself and a kosher one for the person I was traveling with, and the airline person who helped me on the phone told me that they're the same thing.

[cstanleytech]

22. Well there is a slight difference, kosher you can still have a hamburger made of beef :P lol

[freedom fighter jh]

23. Well, sure there's a difference.

My impression was that airlines choose to combine lots of overlapping restrictions and that way they have fewer special meals to deal with.

[cstanleytech]

25. You know this is going to be off topic but this thread has gotten me to wonder if part of

the solution (other than switching the prisoners to a vegetarian diet) might be to let the prisoners make their own individual meals? They could even set it up as a reward like for maintaining a good record of not breaking any rules.

[eggplant]

24. I believe this happened to you.

I just think that the person on the phone didn't know what they were talking about.

The kosher meals I've had on flights (because they are *usually* better than the regular choices) had beef in them. Usually a corned beef sandwich. And the whole thing really is wrapped in an absurd amount of plastic, etc.

As far as complexity goes, the airlines contract out catering to vendors who deal with this all the time. The airline simply tells them how many of each type and they deliver it to the plane. Usually, the special meals are labelled with the passenger's name and seat #, to make serving them easier.

[Mosby]

26. all the kosher food in prisons are frozen dinners or prepackaged offsite with plates and utensils

You can't prepare kosher food in a non-kosher kitchen, doesn't matter if there isn't meat.

You can't use the same surfaces, ovens, slicers/food processors, utensils, cookware, plates and silverware.

You can't even use the same tablecloths and the kosher dishes have to be washed separately and divided by meat/dairy.

[freedom fighter jh]

28. Still, I think you could solve the problem with veg meals . . .

. . . even if those meals are prepared off site. Even that way, it's still cheaper to do it veg than with meat.

They can be served TV-dinner style, in the in the package in which they are delivered to the prison.

[anigbrowl]

16. I'm fine with this

If you're going to incarcerate people you should be feeding them healthy food. If you ask me a huge factor in criminality in this country is malnutrition and the subsequent negative effects on cognition. I don't know why prisons and jails try to cheap out on food, they just wind up paying for it in increased medical and disciplinary costs. Then again most people involved in operation of the carceral system are pretty stupid themselves.

[FLPanhandle]

10. We should absolutely NOT be spending public money to accomodate silly religionous rules

Too many times we bend over backwards to accommodate people's fairy tale rules.

Not when it comes to spending tax money. Just No.

[TeamPooka]

11. Yes, the government should be imposing it's religious beliefs on the inmates.

[anigbrowl]

17. Oh yes we should

We enshrine freedom of worship in the Constitution, and I support that even though I'm an atheist. If someone has religiously-originated dietary requirements I may find the belief that underpins them absurd, but if they are held prisoner their freedom of religion must still be respected. To serve food that you know will cause them distress is immoral and unconstitutional.

I also think that people who are vegetarians should have that preference respected and be supplied meals that contain the same nutritional value as meat-based dishes...even though I'm not a vegetarian.

[freedom fighter jh]

29. Hear, hear

. . . from someone else who is not particularly religious.

We gotta respect the right to practice religion. The Constitution is too important.

Aside: Can you blame people for wanting kosher meals if that meant getting better food? I remember Jack Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew who went to prison for some slimy thing I don't quite remember but it had to do with Bush and money, saying he supported anyone around him in prison who wanted kosher food because the kosher meals were better and all the prisoners were in the same pit of misery together so as many people as possible might as well have this.

[burfman]

19. Hey I did the math it comes down to an additional $3.36 per day per prisoner eating Kosher

Kosher food in general is generally acceptable to Muslims as I understand it from conversations with some Muslim friends in the past. This is because the requirements for Kosher food are a super-set of those of Halal. Though the food can't contain alcohol in order for it to be permissible to Muslims - I don't think that this would be a problem with any prison food. Kosher food can be prepared vegetarian, this making it possible to save some money by providing the same food to all 3 groups saving some of Florida's bucks as some people have already mentioned on this post. Kosher food just isn't a huge amount more than regular food - especially if you go light on or cut out the meat. So the state came up with the $12.3 million cost? That comes to $3.36 per day - hardly enough to make a stink about considering how much it costs in general to stick someone in prison. Now the fact that there are 10% of the prisoners requesting the Kosher meals probably means that they feed real slop on the regular food plan.

By the way is costs $18,000 year to stick someone in a prison in Florida.....

The Kosher food costs Florida less than 7% more per prisoner

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/Quickfacts.html


Burfman......

Here's the math:

12300000 / 10000 = $1,230 per prisoner per year = $3.36 day per prisoner.

[tblue37]

27. Since private prison corporations are raking in the profits, they can darned well spend some of

that money feeding the prisoners according to federal law.

Who knows. Maybe the cost of feeding the prisoners appropriately will persuade some legislators that maybe incarcerating so many people for ridiculous charges might not be the best use of state budgets.

[burfman]

30. What prompted the general prison population to eat kosher food......(60's flashback)

This post brought back some memories of the 60's for some strange reason.......

Burfman.......