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A Times Editorial
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 2, 2002
Florida officials are gambling with prison safety by continuing to employ Aramark Corp. as the principal food service provider for the state's correctional facilities. Since the company took over prison kitchens last year, it has continually violated regulations designed to promote sanitation and safety within the facilities.
The state hired the Philadelphia-based company to feed inmates in 126 of Florida's 133 correctional facilities. Their five-year contract, part of Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to reduce payroll by privatizing many state operations, is expected to cut prison food costs by $8-million in its first year. But quality has been one of the first ingredients sacrificed by Aramark's cost-cutting measures. State officials have yet to push the company to comply with prison regulations or to find a food service provider that will.
The Times' Thomas Tobin recently reported that, under Aramark, daily logs kept by corrections officers across the state have described filthy kitchens, frequent meal delays, attempts to serve spoiled, watered down or undercooked food and a chronic inability to follow a state rule requiring all inmates to receive the same meal -- a security measure to prevent petty food jealousies from escalating into fights.
The company's extreme penny-pinching practices ignore the importance of feeding inmates properly. Corrections officers have long known that a hungry inmate is more likely to be a problem inmate. No one expects prisoners to dine on filet mignon, but three, promptly served, square meals a day go a long way toward keeping the peace among those who live or work within the facility.
Despite the recorded safety concerns, state officials insist the Aramark program is working fine and claim that the contract itself is designed to work out any glitches. Instead of denying the current problems, the state could have averted them before they signed the contract. Officials knew about similar situations at an Aramark-run prison food service in Ohio, which resulted in the state's choosing not to renew its contract with the company.
Florida has already assessed $110,000 in fines against Aramark. But compared with the profit the company will earn in its first year, that's hardly the crackdown needed to force the company to mend its reckless ways.
The company's Web site (www.aramark.com) boasts that Aramark employees are prepared and trained to handle prison threats and emergencies, but in its first year with the state, the company has caused more problems than it has solved. Hundreds of food episodes, as recorded in the daily logs, are testimonies to Aramark's false guarantee that it will save money "while providing better service than the current service you have in place."
If the company cannot live up to its promises, the state needs to find a food service provider that can. Florida inmates deserve better service and corrections officers deserve to work in as safe an environment as possible. Gov. Bush and corrections secretary Michael Moore have been warned repeatedly about Aramark's unsafe practices. If a food riot breaks out and someone is killed, state officials will have some explaining to do.