CountyJail.net

        USA  /  Arizona  /  Maricopa County Jail    CountyJail.net has 1,420 interviews from ex-inmates. Share your story
Find Maricopa County Jail inmates...

Meals

Interview with Tom, Jessica, Justin D., Pat and Sandi

JM: How many meals did you get per day?
Tom: two one about 10 am another about 5 pm, the first consisting of old bread, mostly green bologna or sour ham a drink of some type never soda some type cookies and a fruit orange, mostly kiwi
Jessica: 2 see above
Justin D.: 2
Justin: we got searved 2 meals a day
Pat: We got 2 meals a day breakfast and dinner
Sandi: Two. In the morning we would get 2 small loaves of bread, a package of cookies, a piece of fruit, a small milk and something else that I cannot remember. Dinner was the "warm" meal and was a bit mysterious. It used to have alot of potatoes in it and it was kind of a soupy dish of some sort. Once in awhile it had rice in it instead of potatoes.

JM: How would you rate the food? Please give details of why.
Tom: on a scale of one to ten a two it would sustain if you could stomach the smell and taste
Jessica: well the Sheriff brags the cost of each inmate meal is 30 cents or less
Justin D.: Okay
Justin: the meals they served were not fit to feed an animal. the breakfast consisted of 2 tiny loafs of brea, a peanut butter cup, a cookie, 2 milks and a fruit that was usually rotten and un edible, the dinner meal was slop.. sometimes it was good sometimes i coukldnt even eeat it even if i was starving. slop, fruit, potatoe flakes or beans and somekind of veggie
Pat: The food stunk but what could you do you didnt have a choice unless you had money on your books to by some snacks from store you had to eat what they gave you or go hungry so you really didnt have a choice and after a while you kind of got used to it
Sandi: To me, the best meal was in the morning and the bread carried me for a few weeks before I would finally eat the dinner meal. Once I tried it the dinner was not too bad. It sure looks horrible but an inmate is hungry they will eat it. Once in awhile we got lunch meat in the morning bag.

JM: Did you have any favorite/least favorite meals?
Tom: favorite was hot dog or hamburger because they were hot and least was called death goulash everyone that would east it got sick
Jessica: least was all of it
Justin: nope. they were all the same to me.. none was favorite.. unless of course you were there during the holidays. then the meals were altered.. but never better
Pat: No they all stunk but you had to deal with it. The fruit was good but that was about it
Sandi: The meal bag we would get when we went to court and were in holding cells were the best because they had a tiny jug of kool-aid in them and more items than we got in the pod. However, I would have gladly kept my daily lunch bag in the pod to not have to sit in a holding cell all hunched together for 8 hours.

JM: Were there any other snacks offered outside of meals? What was commissary like and how expensive was it?
Tom: when allowed one time daily there were vending machines if stocked but even a snicker candy bar was $2.00
Jessica: yes on commissary day but only if you had money on your books
Justin D.: Yes
Justin: the commesary was super expensive...3 dollars for soda and 150 for a tiny bag of chips.. no snacks were offered unless you had money on your books for commesary.. but even then you only got to order once a week
Pat: Ya you could get chips and bear claw and stuff. They cost as much as you paid on the out side but you had to have money on your books to buy things from store
Sandi: One time Sheriff Joe had ice cream sent around and we each got a spoonful of ice cream. That was a treat, and quite surprising. Commissary was more expensive than shopping for the items, but it was not terribly unreasonable. Commissary had a nice selection of things to choose from, however there is a limit on how many of some things that can be ordered per week. Envelopes, pencils and stamps were limited.

Read about inmate access to medication in the Maricopa County Jail

comments powered by Disqus