Food in Captivity: Experiences of Women in Indian Prisons

• Author: Debolina Chatterjee,Suhita Chopra Chatterjee
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885517743444
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0032885517743444

The Prison Journal

2018, Vol. 98(1) 40 –59

© 2017 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0032885517743444

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Article

Food in Captivity:

Experiences of Women

in Indian Prisons

Debolina Chatterjee1

and Suhita Chopra Chatterjee1

Abstract

This article demonstrates how prison food is controlled by the state through

denying female prisoners’ choices in food consumption and excluding

them from active roles in cooking. Narratives of women in three prisons

of India have been used to analyze their experiences with prison food.

A majority of inmates perceived food as negatively affecting their health

during imprisonment. Some were found to use it as a medium to recreate

special identities for themselves, contesting the power of the prison. The

study suggests the need for better articulation of the intricate relationship

between power, health, and food in Indian prison settings.

Keywords

prison food, prison health, imprisoned women, power

Introduction

Prisons, as sites of confinement, shape the lived experiences of the impris-

oned population, “whose possibilities are limited materially, spatially and

discursively” (Jefferson, 2014, p. 46). The pains of prisoners range from

those emerging from deprivation of liberty, goods and services, heterosexual

relationships, autonomy, and safety (Sykes, 1958), to the relatively invisible

1Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India

Corresponding Author:

Debolina Chatterjee, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of

Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal 721302, India.

Email: chatterjee.debolina@gmail.com

743444TPJXXX10.1177/0032885517743444The Prison JournalChatterjee and Chatterjee

research-article2017

Chatterjee and Chatterjee 41

pains of uncertainty and determinacy, the pain of psychological assessment,

and the pain of self-government (Crewe, 2011). Prisoners come to be tamed,

suppressed, and reduced to docile bodies under the instruments of surveil-

lance (Foucault, 1977).

A primary means of exercising power over inmates is through the control

of access to food. Food in prison operates within the institutional paradigm of

punishment. The index of concerns and constraints around food, as Coveney

(2000) would say, is controlled by the state, which has the power to control

the lives of the imprisoned population, as well as exercise limits of choice

and access to food. It is the criminal justice system and the institutional

arrangements in prison that determine the type of food that is to be provided

to prison inmates. It is a conscious product, an overt manifestation of the

power of the prison/state (Bosworth, 2003; Garland, 1990; Rhodes, 2001).

Food is a means through which power of the prison system is inscribed and

materialized upon the confined body (Wahidin, 2002), which can “introduce

a constraint of conformity that must be achieved” (Foucault, 1977, p. 183;

King & McDermott, 1995). Prison food connotes an identity for the prisoners

by making them conscious of their subjection to the state. Put in another way,

as Ugelvik (2011) argued, food is a continuation of disrupting one’s identity

during imprisonment, a bodily manifestation of institutional power over indi-

viduals. Such regulation of dietary habits is part of disciplinary measures,

which perpetuates the power of the state to make the imprisoned population

compliant with prison norms (de Graf & Kilty, 2016).

Kent (2005) distinguished between meeting biological nutritional require-

ments through food from providing circumstances for consuming food as

fulfilling one’s human right. The state has to ensure the “optimum” quantity

and quality of food that is to be offered to prison inmates. This requires the

state to continually negotiate between the “adequate” and the “minimal” to

fulfill the requirements of basic rights and that of punishment, respectively.

In prison, nutritional standards of food need to be maintained in consider-

ation of its role for sustenance of inmates. Inmates are not to be kept hungry

as that would be violation of the right to food, which is seen as part of right

to life. But, food should also not be gratifying for them as that would impinge

upon the very idea of punishment. Hence, prison adopts a food recipe, which

makes one meal indistinguishable from another. However, more than the

food, it is the environment, the way in which it is cooked, that makes the food

less nutritious, and perceived to have adverse effect on health. Distributing

meals in bulk and at a time that is usually earlier for meals in free society also

symbolizes the prison experience (Korir, 2011). The meal system can be seen

as being inscribed upon the bodies of inmates (Valentine, 1999; Valentine &

Longstaff, 1998). Nevertheless, food practices change in accordance with