Others say

That noodle story

College graduates who got through school on them are likely to be surprised that ramen noodles are currently described as "gold" by many prison inmates. Ramen noodles are apparently used as an underground currency these days, as cigarettes once were. One former inmate said prisoners are willing to "kill for it, believe it or not."

The implication is that prison nutrition is that bad in many American prisons. The Justice Department should determine whether this is true.

The ramen situation was uncovered by a doctoral candidate at the University of Arizona's school of sociology. Michael Gibson-Light presented the results of his interviews with 60 male inmates and staff members to the American Sociological Association's annual conference in Seattle last week.

Someone is likely to point out that these are, after all, people behind bars for the crimes they committed, many of them heinous. Most are not nice people and should not expect country club treatment.

True enough. But, in a humane society, a prisoner's punishment is his sentence, not the conditions of his imprisonment. No one is advocating plasma TV screens. But we don't put people in dungeons and chains anymore.

Besides, eliminating weekend lunches, reducing portion sizes and handing fully grown adults a cold sandwich and a little bag of chips in place of a hot meal--all things allegedly happening in some parts of the nation's prison system--are likely to lead to prison uprisings and great peril for prison guards. The Justice Department needs to look into this matter.

Editorial on 08/31/2016

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