Court Orders Due Process Before Nutraloaf Diet Applied
Vermont inmates who use utensils to throw bodily waste or food can’t be placed on a special diet without first going through a disciplinary process, a divided Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday. This report from the Burlington Free Press.
The court ruled that before inmates can be fed only water and Nutraloaf, a nutritionally complete but unappetizing concoction, they must be given due process of law … Vermont Human Services Secretary Rob Hofmann, who oversees the Department of Corrections, said prison staff would abide by the Supreme Court ruling, but he was disappointed. “It effectively will require us to wait 24 hours and then hold a hearing,” said Hofmann, who until November was the state’s Corrections commissioner. “It will afford offenders a minimum of three more occasions to use waste, food or utensils to assault our colleagues” …
Nutraloaf and its variations have been used across the country for decades. It is designed to be a complete meal served without utensils. It is made of whole wheat bread, nondairy cheese, carrots, canned spinach, raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and potato flakes, mashed together and baked in a loaf pan. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an equivalent food used in Arkansas might be tolerable for a few days, but “intolerably cruel for weeks or months.” In 1988, a federal judge ruled the Michigan Department of Corrections’ use of Nutraloaf was punishment …
In a dissent, Chief Justice Paul Reiber said the majority decision undermined the department’s ability to manage the state’s prisons because some inmates might prefer sandwiches to prison food. “The department faces a Hobson’s choice of either providing misbehaving inmates with their choice of foods that are likely more appetizing than standard prison fare, thereby encouraging the very behavior that it needs to prevent, or simply doing nothing,” said Reiber’s dissent.