Hungry on the inside: Prison food as concrete and symbolic punishment in a women’s prison
| Author | Giza Lopes,Amy B Smoyer |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474516665605 |
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
2017, Vol. 19(2) 240–255
!The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1462474516665605
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
Article
Hungry on the inside:
Prison food as
concrete and symbolic
punishment in a
women’s prison
Amy B Smoyer
Southern Connecticut State University, USA
Giza Lopes
New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services, USA
Abstract
Women’s perceptions of the prison experience and the punishing dimensions of their
confinement are under-examined. To expand knowledge in this area, Sexton’s theory of
penal consciousness is used to analyze formerly incarcerated women’s narratives about
prison food. This analysis builds understanding about the lived experience of incarcer-
ation by explicating one dimension of prisoners’ understandings and perceptions of
punishment. Women’s narratives describe both concrete and symbolic punishments
associated with food. Participants spoke about poorly designed, sloppy food systems
that left them feeling uncared for, ignored, frustrated, and humiliated. Women articulate
experiences of hunger that reflect both a deprivation of adequate food and a rationing
of humane attentions. These punishing perceptions may inhibit the efforts of social
service and health providers to engage incarcerated and formerly incarcerated
women in care. In contrast, exceptional participant narratives about positive, non-
punishing food experiences suggest that ameliorated food systems could improve the
lived experience of incarceration and promote the engagement in services that is
needed to improve the outcomes of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women.
Keywords
food, prison, punishment, women
Corresponding author:
Amy B Smoyer, Department of Social Work, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St.,
New Haven, CT 06515, USA.
Email: SmoyerA1@southernct.edu
Introduction
Addiction flares and she is out on the street, hustling for drugs to feed her habit.
Rarely stopping, never sleeping, she moves between abandoned houses and strangers’
couches. When she remembers to eat, it’s a small bag of chips from the corner store,
a half-eaten snack cake left on the counter. After the police arrest her and process her
into lock-up, she sleeps and when she wakes up she is sick: The nausea and sweat of
withdrawal hit hard. The smell of a baloney sandwich, slipped unceremoniously
through the bars, is intolerable and she quickly passes it on to another woman in
the cell. She wraps her fingers around the carton of orange-flavored juice, sipping
without appetite.
When she stands before the judge on Monday morning, she is filthy, tired, and
hungry. The lights and sounds of the courtroom crowd in on her as she follows the
public defender’s script. On the van ride to the jail, her head pounds and her stomach
swirls, hands and feet shackled. Nodding through the intake process and the medical
questions, she finally makes it to the unit where she falls into the bottom bunk
exhausted. She hasn’t eaten in nearly 48 hours. The next morning, she is awoken at
5:00 am with a tray of grits and yellow cake. Warm milk. The faces, voices, and smells
of the other women in her bunk come in and out of focus. She eats the cake, frosting
thick and sweet, steadying herself for the months to come.
Punishment is a central concept in the exploration and understanding of criminal
justice policy and prison life. What aspects of the prison experience are perceived
by incarcerated people as the most punishing and how might this information
shape correctional policy and administrative practices? Would rehabilitation
goals be more readily reached if these pains were decreased or magnified?
Narratives about food and eating offer a lens to consider questions about rehabili-
tation and punishment by expanding understanding about the lived experience of
incarceration. The vignette presented above, a compilation of several women’s
stories about entering prison, highlights both the presence and absence of food
during this transition. This article uses narratives about prison food to build know-
ledge about women’s carceral experiences and perceptions of the experience as
punishment.
The US rate of incarceration is still the highest in the world and prison programs
and services have been consistently scaled back since the 1970s (Carson, 2015;
Wacquant, 2009). The conclusion that a swollen system of confinement with min-
imal services is inherently harsh has been contested by theories that highlight the
subjectivities of punishment (Foucault, 1975; Sexton, 2015). Research about penal
subjectivities focuses in particular on the micro-activities of daily prison life to
better understand individuals’ experiences with and perceptions of punishment
(Smoyer, 2015). Scholars argue that it is through these quotidian tasks that the
carceral experience is lived, making micro-activities better suited than macro-
descriptors of correctional systems for understanding individuals’ experiences of
Smoyer and Lopes 241
To continue reading
Request your trial