Prisoners at Featherstone demand bigger meal sizes
Prisoners are demanding more food at a South Staffordshire jail despite getting to choose from a 'wide choice menu' and having special meals prepared for celebrations, a report has revealed.
The complaints over portion sizes, which are now being addressed by chiefs, have been described as 'hard to swallow' by the local MP.
The complaints were revealed in the annual report on Featherstone Prison which produces 713,000 meals at its kitchens every year.
The inmates'have a big menu which includes five portions of fruit and vegetables every day. Special dishes are also served up to mark key dates such as Christmas, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, Eid, Sikh Festivals and British Pride Week, the report by the Independent Monitoring Board reveals.
South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson said he found the complaint hard to swallow. He said: "If they are complaining that their portions are too small, I would remind them that it is us taxpayers on the other side of the fence who are picking up the bill for their food.
"I think it a bit rich that someone who has committed a crime of sufficient seriousness to be sent to prison goes around moaning about not being given enough to eat.
"The road for these inmates to take if they want to achieve this objective is simple. They can then get a job, earn a salary and have enough money to buy whatever food they want."
The report also reveals the smuggling of drugs into the jail is still a problem.
Extra fencing, more CCTV and an under vehicle camera system that checks traffic at the prison have failed to end the menace.
Officials have also covered all the roof vents into the workshops with grills to prevent drugs getting in to the jail.
But the statement warns: "The ingress of illicit substances continues to be of concern although in the past year several steps have been taken to overcome this."
The jail has a nominal operational capacity of 687 men and its voluntary drug and alcohol rehabilitation service was dealing with 253 of them in October after seeing a total of 695 people over the previous year.
A 10-strong team at the Category C jail conducts mandatory drug tests on prisoners with a screening system unable to identify-synthetic cannabis such as Black Mamba.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: "Featherstone is a prison that takes the illicit use of drugs very seriously and has a detailed action plan to tackle this. We recognise that there have been a small number of instances where property has not been transported with prisoners and we are working on a solution to overcome this."
