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I Type This Sentence Twenty He Town of Westville Sits One-Eighth of Westville—Appeared Minutes After Eating Leftover Beneath the Southern Utterly Gulag-Ish

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I Type This Sentence Twenty He Town of Westville Sits One-Eighth of Westville—Appeared Minutes After Eating Leftover Beneath the Southern Utterly Gulag-Ish Eating with the inmates of Westville Correctional Facility I type this sentence twenty he town of Westville sits one-eighth of Westville—appeared minutes after eating leftover beneath the southern utterly gulag-ish. spaghetti and clams for breakfast, a curve of Lake Michigan, The first thing you notice when Hungry Man-sized portion at nine an hour’s drive from Chi- walking into Westville, however, is a.m. It is an exertion of my free will cago, past the belching steel plants that the sta# is unflinchingly Mid- to do so. It is within my civic right of Northwest Indiana. It is every western. Their jocular disposition— as a dedicated grocery shopper and small American town that ever beginning with your pat-down keeper of leftovers, imprinted in the existed, a patchwork of green and o$cer at the security checkpoint— Charter of Man, that I am free to brown rectangles on Google Map’s is unnervingly pleasant. I remem- eat however much I want, of what I satellite view. On the two Janu- ber a coroner I met years ago who want, when I want. ary days I visited Westville Correc- had the most inappropriately mor- In prison, that right is stripped tional Facility, the winter’s second bid sense of humor—he mimed the away. Craving pizza on a Saturday polar vortex was bearing down on suicide victim on the gurney blow- night? Feel like washing it down with Middle America, plunging daytime ing his brains out, complete with cold beer? It’s not happening. Your wind chills to -!" degrees Fahren- exploding hand gestures from his right is reduced to eating portion- heit. Westville’s position south of temple. It was, I realized, a coping fixed food dictated by a warden on a Lake Michigan also makes the area mechanism to deal with the dark- set schedule. If you’re hungry after prone to biblical lake-e#ect snow- ness he sees daily, one that might dinner, you’ll go to bed hungry. storms. And so, against the howl- explain why the prison sta# (at The thought of losing this control ing white-out squall, the eighty- least in the presence of a reporter) sends me into a panic attack. five-acre prison—occupying about seemed so sunny. !"# Lucky Peach Photographs by Armando L. Sanchez To enter the prison compound says. Apparently fish is one of most meals are prepared several proper, you step through a mecha- the better-tasting o#erings the days before service—cooked, then nized door into a holding cell, and prisoners see, in the way that quickly refrigerated in an indus- wait as that door closes before a canker sores are the best kind of try-standard practice called blast- second door slowly grinds its metal- ulcers. “That’s a top-notch tray chilling. Reheating it, workers in lic gears open. When that second right there. But that fish patty, it the production kitchen claim, turns door clangs shut with a sound just ain’t meat. It’s just breading.” everything into a one-note texture like in the movies, you enter a world The fish patty sits atop three more suitable for nursing homes. of around !,!"" inmates, each serv- slices of white bread—two to make Two entrées exemplify mush: ing an average of four years for a sandwich, and the extra slice pre- goulash and chop suey. o#enses from burglary and drug sumably to meet the %,("" to %,)"" On days these dishes are served, possession to arson and worse. daily calories as recommended by many inmates will skip their Their favorite pastime seems to the American Correctional Asso- meals altogether. Hearing them be staring at you. An Asian reporter ciation for adult males under fifty. describe the dishes is like listen- and Hispanic photographer are curios There’s also a corn mu*n, steamed ing to grandpa recall war atrocities when every day’s the same day: wake carrots and green beans, plus mac he witnessed: spoken with a heavy up at five a.m., don your beige prison and cheese sloshing around in a sigh, best left in the past. garb, work your twenty-cents-an- puddle of bright orange water. Some On goulash: “Noodles in red sauce hour job, sit around in the dorms trays hold elbow pasta, others have ... his tray may have meat, mine may until lights out at eleven p.m. So the corkscrew. Beverage is a Styrofoam not ... the noodles have been over- inmates are eager to talk, if just to cup of powdered tropical punch. cooked so much, it’s compacted break up the monotony. And when The most coveted items on the together so it’s like mush. You try to you mention you’re here to write tray are the salt and pepper pack- pick up one noodle and eighteen go about food in prisons, it’s like ram- ets. Every person I surveyed, with- along for the ride.” ming a car into a fire hydrant and out fail, used the word “bland” in Two inmates have a conversation watching the water gush skyward. describing chow hall food. Rather explaining chop suey: “Why don’t you grab one and eat than prepare separate trays for “It’s a bunch of cabbage and with us, bro? And you tell us what inmates with high cholesterol or water.” you think,” says Shaun Kimbrough, blood pressure, the kitchen serves “That’s it. It may have a few who’s wheelchair-bound and serving low-sodium meals for the entire grains of rice.” a five-year sentence for aggravated prison population. Even with the “... And corn if you’re lucky.” battery. “It’s gonna hurt your stom- added salt, though, it tastes like a “See, in mine, I don’t remember ach, but we’re used to it.” vague notion of lunch, with all the corn.” The Westville cafeteria, or “chow flavor and pleasure of food eaten one An inmate named James Rog- hall,” is where the state of Indiana hour after dental surgery. ers speaks more broadly about din- spends $$.%!& to feed each pris- Says Thomas Powell, who’s serv- ing in incarceration: “I’ve been here oner each meal, three times a day. ing time for drug dealing: “You’re for six years. It has never changed. They line up single file, shu'ing salting something with no flavor to You came here on a good day. If forward until they reach a waist- begin with. It’s tasteless. It’s horrible. you came out when they served the height hole in the wall. Every five It’s repetitive day after day.” Powell other stu#, you’d be horrified. We seconds, a hardened plastic tray of brings packets of powdered ramen have no choice but to eat it.” compartmentalized food slides into soup seasoning to sprinkle over his I ask Warren Christian, in West- view and is quickly picked up. The food. He is not alone in his desire ville the last five years for robbery, transaction between server and for flavor—up and down the rows how long it took him to adjust to inmate is an anonymous relation- of steel tabletops, inmates pull out prison food. ship, a food glory hole. bottles of hot sauce they bring from “Years. It took years. Some people Today is fish sandwich day the dorms, dousing their breaded never get accustomed to it.” at Westville, and conspiracy fish and three slices of white bread. What was the turning point? theories abound. The next most frequently uti- “Finally accepting the situation “They know y’all coming, that’s lized food descriptor is “mush.” Food you’re in. That you’re not going any- why they served fish,” Kimbrough texture is di*cult to retain when where until they release you.” Lucky Peach !"# ood is also served three gang leaders and inmates who com- is a frightening place to be. The times daily to the inmates mitted a heinous crime. inmates know you’re there. Sud- at Westville Control Unit, its The prison isn’t bragging when denly everyone appears at their maximum-security ward, they call it supermax. To reach cell-door window, a dozen pairs of aka “supermax.” Two types of o!end- fresh air from lockup requires get- eyes laser-trained in your direc- ers get a ticket here: ") Those whose ting past nine gates of electrified or tion. They scream at you. Through behavior while incarcerated neces- impenetrable steel doors. Regard- the glass partitions, we hear mu$ed sitates segregation from the general less of the guards and a separa- banshee wails demanding to know prison population, and #) Shot-calling tion of bulletproof glass, supermax our business. !"" Lucky Peach For the correctional o!cers placed in segregation and served a others are considered in creating who deal with these hardest of the nineteen-ounce brick of Nutraloaf healthy, satisfying meals every day.” already-hard, protocol is to err on twice daily, typically for three con- Aramark is the largest pro- the side of extreme caution. They’re secutive days or until, in the words of vider of prison-food services in the required to serve food in pairs while Indiana Department of Corrections country, serving one million meals wearing body-armor vests. One spokesman Doug Garrison, it achieves a day in more than #)) correc- o!cer’s job is to lock and unlock its intent of “behavior modification.” tional facilities. For governments, the cu" door, the steel flap where Sgt. Sipich says she’s only seen it privatizing prison-food services is food slides through, while the other served to two o"enders in her tenure.
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