Vermont inmates call food foul, sue over it

The National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union gets occasional inmate complaints about nutraloaf, but the issue hasn't been involved in the group's litigation in years.

"Our position is that it shouldn't be used unless a violation has to do with food. It shouldn't be used as punishment," said the Prison Project's Public Policy Coordinator Jody Kent. "And even in those circumstances, they have to make sure it won't put at risk their health."

'Administrative action'
Vermont Assistant Attorney General Kurt Kuehl, who will argue the case for the Department of Corrections, said the use of nutraloaf isn't punishment.

Instead, Kuehl said, it's as if a correctional officer were to find an inmate with a knife. He wouldn't have to hold a hearing to take the knife away.

"It's taking an administrative action to protect the facility," said Kuehl.

Afterward, the inmate can be subject to a separate disciplinary hearing for the conduct that led to being fed nutraloaf.

Most Vermont inmates given nutraloaf have used their eating utensils to throw body waste. Nutraloaf, however, is served on a simple piece of paper, removing from the inmate's reach the utensils that can be used to store the waste before it is thrown.

Hofmann said Vermont prisons average about one nutraloaf episode a month.

Christopher Williams, 29, who is charged in a 2006 school shooting that killed two people in Essex, was given nutraloaf after he'd assaulted guards and smeared excrement in his cell.

Since then, his name hasn't appeared on the list of inmates given nutraloaf.

"His name was nowhere to be found," Hofmann said. "I presume it was effective."

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