By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Junk food and cell-made meals cobbled together with commissary items appear to be the preferred bill of fare for some Ohio inmates with distaste for the prison-provided food.
Purchases at prison commissaries have jumped since Aramark Correctional Services took over meal service last fall, with some prisoners complaining about food quality and quantity.
The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has fined Aramark $272,300 in ordering it to fix problems while accepting shared responsibility for the presence of maggots in some food-service areas
A Dispatch analysis of commissary food-sales figures suggests that some inmates are using their limited pocketbooks to vote on the desirability of prison meals that Aramark provides at a cost of $3.61 a day per inmate.
At Noble Correctional Institution near Caldwell in southeastern Ohio, monthly commissary food sales have increased an average of 14.5 percent since unionized prison employees stopped making meals.
At the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville, where about 1,000 prisoners once dumped their lunches in the trash to protest a discovery of maggots, average monthly commissary food sales have risen 11 percent.
The figures are based on comparisons with sales from January through September 2013, when state employees ran prison kitchens, and from October 2013 through July while Aramark served meals.
Noble and the Reformatory for Women are among the seven prisons that have experienced two-thirds of the food-service problems since Aramark began working under a $110 million, two-year state contract billed as saving millions.
Among all 25 state-operated prisons, average monthly commissary food sales have jumped by $145,000, or nearly 6 percent, to $2.6 million.
Sales of nonfood items, such as clothing and electronic items, have declined nearly 4 percent, suggesting inmates are spending a larger share of their money on Little Debbies, ice cream and other treats.
Inmates with prison jobs earn an average of $18 a month, and family and friends can deposit unlimited amounts in their accounts for commissary purchases.
Prisons officials said a number of factors likely contributed to the increase in food sales and declined to attribute it solely to dissatisfaction with Aramark’s “heart healthy” meals that feature little red meat and fried items.
Joanna Saul, director of the legislature’s Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, said prisoners continue to express concerns about food, but problems appear to be diminishing.
State officials “have encouraged executive staff to have more of a presence in food-service areas, and there’s additional oversight of Aramark. That appears to be working,” she said. Saul dined last week at the Southeastern Correctional Institution near Lancaster and found the food “not bad.”
Prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said prison officials placed Aramark under “an unprecedented contract-monitoring system” and will continue to “aggressively monitor” the Philadelphia company’s performance.
The state turns a profit of about 15 to 20 percent, based on Noble and Ohio Reformatory for Women figures, on inmate commissary purchases. The profit is spent on recreational equipment, day-room TVs and other items to benefit prisoners.
Ohio’s prison population stands at 50,601 — less than 700 under the all-time high of 51,273 reached in late 2008. The average prisoner serves two years and costs an annual average of $22,836 to house.
The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association is calling for an end to the privatization of food service and a return of union employees. The union and prison system are in arbitration over the change, which cost 17 employees their jobs and resulted in the transfer of 341 workers to other jobs.