The Great Spork Shortage of 2024

Call them disgusting, call them malnourishing, or call them gross, but prison meals, regardless of the facility serving them, have been consistently eaten at the same times of day for as long as the carceral system has existed. Routine is the foundation on which prisons traditionally operate; however, time changes all things, and even the most fervently held tradition is no exception.

There used to be a time when a prison meal being postponed for anything less than a full-on security breach was unimaginable. The phrase "like clockwork" applied very well. And now? It can be argued that there's no good time to come to prison, but this is an especially bad time for it — at least in Missouri, and particularly at Eastern Reception, Diagnostic & Correctional Center, where it seems that everything is in a perpetual state of falling apart. This includes the dining experience.

We eat from brown, five-slot plastic trays. When I arrived at ERDCC, in 2018, cafeteria-style utensil cups occupied a cart, midway through the line, where there were bright orange sporks to eat your food with and eight-ounce aubergine tumblers for drinking the watered-down Kool-Aid. But allegations of utensil theft eventually prompted the kitchen staff to relocate the sporks to the serving line, where they began doling them out, one per tray. This worked fine but did little to stop anyone from taking stuff out of the dining hall. A person used to catch a conduct violation if they brought their own cup or utensil to the dining hall — or anything personal, for that matter, including canteen-bought condiments. That policy hasn't changed. The second rule painted in big, black letters on the beige brick wall (right after "NO HEADGEAR") still clearly reads, "NO PERSONAL ITEMS," it's just that no one enforces it anymore. Less than a year since I last saw someone turned away for having a coffee mug in his hand, bringing one's own personal cup and spork is now actively encouraged. Guards frequently make announcements over the intercom before releasing the housing unit to a meal, saying that the kitchen has no clean sporks or cups. Consistency in the institution's day-to-day operations has slowly, frustratingly, eroded since I arrived here, but this just seems ridiculous. Irregular mealtimes and staff's frequent failure to announce important events are bad enough, but when institutional amnesia about mealtime must-haves takes complete hold, what's a hungry guy to do? I purchased my own sturdy plastic spork from the canteen for 23¢, but I'm not always packing. Yesterday morning's oatmeal presented a challenge that I didn't care to answer, but when they caught me off guard on chili mac day, a couple of weeks ago, I was happy to have clean hands. My fingers smelled like onions and spices for the rest of the day, but I didn't miss that meal.

The odds of not getting a spork with any given tray are now close to fifty-fifty. I should know better than to come unequipped, but stubborn expectations keep winning out. The DOC's new fiscal quarter starts in April; maybe they'll invest in a remedy to this issue then.