HARLAN RICHARDS

May 20, 2013

The Great Bratwurst Caper

Wisconsin is renowned for its brats, especially when they
are cooked on a grill at a tailgate party. But brats in prison,
however, are an entirely different matter.

Stanley prison recently added brats to its regular menu
rotation so once every 4 weeks we are served brats - not very
good brats, but brats nonetheless. The last time brats were
scheduled to be served, they were canceled at the last minute
and hamburgers were substituted (the hamburgers aren't very
good, either). A kitchen staff member noticed that the brats
contained pork and this prison doesn't usually serve pork.
The brats were most likely surplus products purchased at a dis-
count by the DOC.

Pork is not served because there are many registered Muslims
and Jews in prison who refuse to eat pork. The brats were re-
scheduled and announcements were made to let the Muslims and
Jews opt out of being served pork brats and receive a substitute
entree which is this case was a hot dog. When it came time
to serve the meal, the kitchen staff sent down only enough brats
to serve the non-Muslim and non-Jewish prisoners. Instead of
being allowed to opt out of eating pork, all Muslims and Jews
were ordered to accept the non-pork meal.

I should point out that there really aren't any Jews in
this prison (I know this because a few months ago a rabbi came
to Stanley to conduct services for the dozens of prisoners who
claimed to be Jewish and not one of them showed up for the
service). The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) mandates
that prison officials have a duty to provide resources for
prisoners to practice their sincerely held religious beliefs
-including kosher and other dietary restrictions. The kosher
diet the prison provides under the RFRA is substantially better
than the regular prison diet and Jews are also entitled to
special meals on holidays like Passover. Many prisoners have
designated Judaism as their religion so they can eat a daily
kosher diet and/or qualify for the special meals on holidays.

Bratwurst Caper/page two/May 20, 2013/Harlan Richards

One guy who was registered as a Jew but was eating the
regular meals and only ate the Jewish food on holidays refused
to accept the substitute meal. At meal time, the took a regular
tray and ate the port brat after being told not to. The guard
wrote him a conduct report and that evening he was placed in
segregation. Prisoners are sometimes placed in seg when accused
of violating rules if a supervisor feels he would pose a threat
if left in the general population. In this case, I suspect
it was the blatant refusal to obey the guard that outraged him
and prompted him to write the conduct report.

Whenever a prisoner is placed in segregation on pending
charges, the security director reviews the placement and conduct
report the next day to see whether the line supervisor's actions
were justified. In this case, the prisoner was released from
seg but the conduct report was processed. He is now scheduled
for a disciplinary hearing to determine whether he is guilty
of a rule violation. He could still end up in seg as punishment
or get a lesser penalty or be found not guilty.

The RFRA was a Godsend for prisoners when it was enacted.
The U.S. Supreme Court had circumscribed a prisoner's right
to practice his or her religion to such an extent, many prisoners
could not worship feely. But the manner in which Wisconsin
prison officials chose to capitulate on the kosher food issue
under the pretext of complying with the RFRA harms all of us.
Kosher meals are expensive to provide - substantially more ex-
pensive than the regular prison meals. The food budget is set
at a predetermined level. For every kosher meal provided to
a pseudo-Jew, there is less money to provide palatable food
for the rest of us.

In a previous blog, I stated that although the food was
not great, it was not that bad. I equated it with the average
American diet. I now with to retract that assertion. In the
2 years I've been here, food service staff have been constantly
revising the menu and lowering the quality and quantity of food
they serve us. In the 28 years I've been in prison, this is
the worst food I've ever had. It was never like this at any
other prison I've been in and from what I can see, the other
prisons are not doing what is being done in Stanley.

But this blog is about the ridiculousness of the brat in-
cident. Why would the prisoner defy the guard and eat the for-
bidden brat? Why would the guard take is so personal and write
a conduct report and have the prisoner placed is seg? This
sort of pettiness is endemic to prison life. For someone living
in the free world, this may sound surreal. For those of us
in prison, it is how we live our lives. Is it any wonder why
a prisoner who spends decades in prison has a hard time adapting
to free society?