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Comment by mikeyouse | Hacker News Reader

Is it really much different than Jews keeping Kosher or Muslims keeping Halal? Prisons are for punishment for crimes that we consider significant enough to jail people, they don't have to dehumanize the prisoners.

The cost of 'specialty' food for a few tiny percent of prisoners is a minuscule figure in the total cost of imprisonment, and could easily be accommodated within the wider food offerings. If every meal had Kosher / Halal / Vegan offerings as a subset of the total meal, we could both imprison people and treat their ethics and morals with respect. Seems like a win-win.

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It's still unelegant and inconsistent. If I claim my diet requires high-quality food determined by me daily, that gets ignored.

I understand Kosher for commercial enterprises like airlines: with a minimum of effort, they can satisfy many customers. But governments should have consistent treatment of citizens.

Even if a diet choice is voluntary, if the choice is grounded in religious or ethical reasons then it is an infringement of personal freedom to deny that. Yes, prison itself is an infringement of freedom, but some believe that certain freedoms should remain permanent.

Well obviously the prisons disagree, and since they are fundamentally rooted in the denial of freedom then I don't think anyone involved in the prison industrial complex (even in Sweden) is going to care to hear arguments about how they should be nicer to prisoners.

http://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk/uploads/documents/prisoner...

There are plenty of people workig on makig prisons nicer for prisoners. This includes respecting their religion (as guided by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Well, religious diets are arguably not voluntary. I'd say it's far different to allow a Kosher meal than it is to plan, purchase, prep, and serve a special diet to one inmate who has a preference of diet because that is how they chose to eat on the outside.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there.

Religious diets are not voluntary, but choice of religion is voluntary.

Vegetarian/vegan diets adhering to an ethical philosophy are not voluntary, but choosing to accept an animal rights philosophy is voluntary.

Either both are a choice or neither are a choice, depending on how you define your terms.

Now, if the vegan diet was for personal taste or even for health reasons (as long as there was no significant health impact from going off of it), then it's a different story.

> Religious diets are not voluntary, but choice of religion is voluntary.

Agreed

> Vegetarian/vegan diets adhering to an ethical philosophy are not voluntary, but choosing to accept an animal rights philosophy is voluntary.

Not agreed. Your right to accept certain philosophies while in prion is forfeited upon conviction. This means, if you are not eating meat because you simply feel it's wrong -- well, the prison has no obligation to oblige you. If you are not eating meat because of your religion, that is different. Sure - one may "convert" to a new religion to obtain a certain preferred diet, but that is still applying the rule evenly and fairly.

> Now, if the vegan diet was for personal taste or even for health reasons (as long as there was no significant health impact from going off of it), then it's a different story.

This would be the foundation for an awful law which would be enforced with bias and randomness. How do you actually determine if a diet is being followed for pure taste reasoning, or if it's something based on personal ethics? You cannot, and therefore this cannot be a rule. Rules and laws must be based on a foundation that can be applied evenly and fairly to all, not left up to judgement by a sometimes-in-a-nice-mood-sometimes-in-a-bad-mood warden.

> Not agreed. Your right to accept certain philosophies while in prion is forfeited upon conviction.

There are a bunch of international covenants and agreements that disagree with you.

This document talks specifically about food: http://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk/uploads/documents/prisoner...

Your misrepresentations of the reasons some people are vegan or vegetarian are so severe it makes the conversation pointless. Some people have beliefs about eatig meat that are equivalent to religious belief.

The document you linked to does not protect personal choice of diet.

> 2.3.9 European Prison Rules

> See para (1.2.4) above for an explanation of the European Prison Rules. Rule 22 states “Prisoners shall be provided with a nutritious diet that takes into account their ... religion, culture ..."

> 2.4 Vegetarian and Vegan diets

> In some countries, the food provided to all prisoners may be vegetarian (non-vegetarians may have to buy meat).

So the inverse is true with prisons that serve meat.

> Receiving vegetarian or vegan meals in prison may not be an easy process. In some countries, you may be required to show that your request for a vegetarian or vegan diet is based on ethical or religious beliefs.

Again, the EU portion of this document does not protect ethical beliefs, only religious ones.

The argument isn't about whether they do (clearly they don't, based on the article), it's about whether they should.

Not really -- the direct parent of my comment was making the point that ethics are indeed a reason to obey prisoner's dietary desires. As I pointed out -- they are not.

Where are you drawing this line between religion and ethics? Jews believe it is wrong to eat pork, vegans believe it is wrong to eat animals. What makes one of these beliefs a protected status and one not?

>How do you actually determine if a diet is being followed for pure taste reasoning, or if it's something based on personal ethics?

One can also lie about religious affiliation, or magically "convert", to get better or alternative meals, and in fact some prisoners do this. I don't see your point.

Religious belief and ethical belief both reside in someone's mind and nowhere else.

>Religious diets are not voluntary, but choice of religion is voluntary.

Care to elaborate on this? Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but I cannot see how a religious diet is not voluntary. Surely someone on a religious diet could eat certain foods if they choose to or not, no?

> It's still unelegant and inconsistent. If I claim my diet requires high-quality food determined by me daily, that gets ignored.

Wardens are not robots and are capable of applying common sense and judgment. If a prisoner claims that his morals require him not to eat animal products, he's likely to be telling the truth. If he claims his morals require Kobe beef daily, he's probably lying.

Why is my claim that I must have Kobe beef (because I'm divine, and I say so) any less valid than the claim I can't eat pork because God said so?

Higher weight is given to mass delusions compared to acute delusions.

Because one of them is an earnestly held belief and the other is you lying to get special treatment, and humans are capable of telling the difference. See the bit above about using common sense and not being a mindless rule-applying robot.

Also, because people who request kosher, halal, vegetarian, or vegan diets in prison aren't generally demanding higher-quality food, just different food. When accommodated, they generally still get low-grade prison fare. Thus there's little motivation to lie about it.

So before I go to prison, I should earnestly develop a sincere desire for, say, pancakes every day, then it'd count?

I understand that law interpreters are not mindless robots. However it seems very arbitrary to support kosher and halal, but not Pastafarian diets.

It's as silly as only granting conscientious objector status to "real" Mennonites.

As soon as you develop an honest and genuine belief that your moral system requires you to eat pancakes, I'll consider the notion that prisons should be required to serve you shitty, leathery pancakes.

The thing is, you're not going to do that, and neither is anyone else. Policy should not be guided by ridiculous hypotheticals.

> It's still unelegant and inconsistent.

Yes, what a shame in such an otherwise elegant and consistent system.

>The cost of 'specialty' food for a few tiny percent of prisoners is a minuscule figure in the total cost of imprisonment, and could easily be accommodated within the wider food offerings.

Agreed, this would seem to be manageable without much burden on the system.

On the other hand however, this reasoning discounts scenarios where inmates are pushing these subjective demarcations, for furthering their own needs, at the expense of being fair to everyone.

For example, in many states prisoner's may earn exemptions based off their religious practices.[1] If, an atheist prisoner, was denied sex, just because of their beliefs, I suspect they would have a right to be upset.

One should keep in mind, that it's quite possible to be supportive of increasing prisoner's rights and benefits, whilst also pushing for prisoner equality.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014...

Well said. Basic human rights.

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