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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Stafford inmates are doing thyme

Callie White The Daily World

ABERDEEN, Wash. – Professional kitchens are well-known for colorful characters and high pressure atmospheres, and the one at Stafford Creek Corrections Center isn’t too far off the mark.

There, burly guys mix roux in 80-gallon drums, men with tattoos on their hands and faces sort lunch meat, and over prison beige, men scoop out gingersnap dough onto baking sheets in what must be the busiest, largest kitchen in the county.

For all its preparation by a motley crew, the food gets good reviews from staff, who can eat inmate-prepared food or home-cooked and restaurant meals. And the most important critics – the prisoners themselves – when asked informally, will say they like it. Especially compared with food at other prisons.

“I’ve only been here and in Shelton,” said inmate Mark Beeson, 40, a vegetable prep worker in the kitchen. “And here, it is much better than Shelton. I do appreciate the food.”

Staffers appreciate it when inmates like the food – it makes their job easier. An offender who thinks he is being treated fairly and nourished adequately is less likely to get upset about other things.

Doug Thaut, a hearings officer, said that when he started at the prison there were a few days on which the prison always served pollock. Grumblings among the inmates started to turn into behavior problems. He called the kitchen to tell them to stop cooking the bland whitefish.

“People take food very personally,” said Superintendent Dan Pacholke. “When the food isn’t prepared or presented well, offenders think, ‘You think I’m an animal.’ ” And prisoners often behave the way they think they’re expected to.”

“Prison is punishment enough,” said Joe Williamson, the food services manager. “We’re not here to punish them even more.”

The prison has no control over the menu, which is put out by a state nutritionist. But it’s up to the inmates to do the cooking.

Producing about 6,000 meals a day takes a lot of manpower. And because the jobs don’t require any particular skill, inmates, who are required to find jobs, often end up there.

Sure, there are cooks, such as Pam Purdue, but she spends most of her time overseeing preparation. Her job is to watch the inmates when they cross the line or make a mistake preparing food, which she said is rare once they’re trained.

“They think they’re professional chefs here,” she said. Offenders who’ve been on the job a while sometimes argue over spices or get bossy about how to cook something “right.” It can be amusing, said Purdue.

Technically, the inmates are professional – they are paid prison wages for their work, $55 a month maximum for their five-day workweeks. Much of their pay goes toward victim compensation or court fines and fees.

Williamson said he spends about $270,000 per month on the no-frills kitchen budget. “I’m a taxpayer, like everyone else,” he said. “I don’t want any more money spent than is necessary.”

At least one reason the budget is healthy is that the food is, too. Stafford Creek makes its muffins, cookies and baked goods by hand, and the prison purchases whole, instead of precut and diced, vegetables. Although the canned and frozen veggies are less of a security risk because no inmate need touch a blade to prepare them, they’re more expensive. And because the whole veggies are cheaper, more of them can be used. .

Another cost-saving measure is a result of something noticed by a corrections officer two years ago: All inmates have bar codes on their ID badges, which they have to wear at all times. Why not use the bar codes to economize meals?

Williamson spent $1,000 out of the budget on bar code scanners and an inmate wrote a program that uses a spreadsheet that tracks whether the scanned prisoner has already eaten and whether they had a special diet.

“Before, inmates got to pick and choose,” Williamson said. With a corrections officer scanning bar codes, offenders can’t just pick the meal they want. Williamson said it’s paying for itself in a matter of months.

The bar code program is being proposed for the rest of the state.

Making meals takes a crew of 75 overseen by a handful of officers. The vegetable prep area is in its own separate room, where three inmates cut vegetables with knives that they have to sign out for and which officers tether to the workstations. The knives themselves are kept in an officer-only locked room behind a locked metal grate. Other tools, such as soup ladles and whisks, are locked up against shadowboards.

Although offenders go through a metal detector to enter and exit the kitchen, they are resourceful enough to figure out ways to get things out of the kitchen, Purdue said. There is a small gap between the dining room and the dishwashing station, and although it’s hard from either side to see in, the gap presents a security risk. The utensils – no knives – are made of plastic.

Roger Grant, a corrections officer watching over the diners on the other side of the wall, said that if most people share feelings, culture and history when they break bread, well, inmates also bring other things to mealtimes.

Seats are assigned by rows so offenders don’t necessarily get to eat with their buddies, and they get only 20 minutes to finish their meal. An officer keeps an eye out to prevent food from getting traded or stolen.

“If someone gives someone else a banana at their table, that’s a judgment call,” Grant said. “If you see someone walking across the room with a handful of cookies, that’s something else. Strong-arming. Intimidation.”

In the world of prison, trading something like cookies for sex isn’t unheard of, Grant said.