Captive Consumers

Hunger, Violence, and Inequality in American Prison Food

Chin Jou

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781469693156
  9781469693149
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469693163
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

Much of what happens inside America’s 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 violence—ultimately making carceral institutions more dangerous. But this compelling book also illuminates how people behind bars have reasserted their identities, resourcefulness, and humanity through self-prepared food even as prison food services profit from lucrative, taxpayer-funded contracts that reward cost-cutting over care. If US corrections systems continue to perpetuate physical and psychological violence through food, Jou argues, Americans will suffer not just wasted tax dollars but the cost of bringing traumatized, ailing, and hungry formerly incarcerated people back into society.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction “No Frills” Frenzy
• 1 The Purpose of These Notes Is to Emphasize That the Official Menu Is Misleading
• 2 Is It Just Me or Has the Food Service Experienced a Plummet in Quality?
• 3 The Institution Is Our Customer, Not the Prisoner
• 4 Each Week Does Contain One Bright, Shining Moment
• 5 You Can Eat or Not Eat, We Don’t Really Care
• 6 Statement of Nutritional Adequacy
• 7 I Find It Amazing That the Riot Would Be Based on Food
• Conclusion The End (of Mass Incarceration and Last Meals)
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index