SC South Carolina Inmates Complain About Food
COLUMBIA — A lawsuit by three South Carolina inmates that makes a host of stomach-turning food-service allegations against the state has been moved from Charleston County to Richland County.
The 10-page hand printed lawsuit, filed in December, calls the conditions at the state’s Lieber Correctional Institution in Dorchester County “deplorable” and accuses its employees of committing “grossly negligent acts.” It targets the state Department of Corrections, the Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the Department of Agriculture. Report by The Augusta Chronicle.
“An awful, innumerable, and unbelievably overwhelmingly (sic) amount of flies were present in the dining room,” reads the inmates’ complaint, which includes a request for $30,000 in damages.
The inmates who are suing are Patrick L. Booker, 26, convicted of armed robbery, Bobby A. Gilbert, 34, convicted of murder, and Patrick Strozier, 46, who is serving a kidnapping sentence.
Their lawsuit also says that since 2009, the prison officials failed to ensure that inmate kitchen workers did their jobs. The result, they said, is a dining room floor that is “absolutely filthy with gross removable black soot, dirt and grime.”
When asked about the suit over the summer, a spokesman for the corrections department declined to comment, because the dispute was pending.
The inmates said the food they were served contributed to weight loss, headaches, listlessness, anxiety and depression.
Other allegations detailed in the suit include:
• Inmates were served “spoiled, greenish and undone meat; stale, molded bread; rotten boiled eggs; undercooked cold rice; flowered down and watery gravy; overcooked beans; soogie (sic) brownish lettuce; cold soup; spoiled and contaminated milk; cold, harden (sic) bread rolls and biscuits … long expired items such as ketchup, salad dressing, meats and discolored tomato paste.”
• Prison staff flouted state regulations that require them to post the food service grade and score and inspection records. The inmates also say they were served food labeled, “not for human consumption, animal feed.”
• Since May 2009, prison leadership engaged in “unfair trade practices” in order to cut costs and further their “kickback scheme.”
The American Correctional Association had no data on the number of grievances filed regarding food service in South Carolina prisons or across the nation. But a staff member said he could not recall receiving any reports about the conditions in prison kitchens or of the quality of food.
Food Services, Inmate Grievances, Jail and Prison Conditions, South Carolina
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