The blue trays were disgusting at the chow hall in my wing of the Mark Stiles Unit, a Texas prison 85 miles east of Houston. Grease-stained. Flecked with days-old tomato paste. Slimy, smelly and woefully unsanitized.
Every time I went to the chow hall to eat, I carried toilet paper with me to line the tray. On pork days the thin paper was soaked with grease. On chicken days, residue on the tray left my stomach queasy. It’s no wonder many people on that side of the prison skipped at least one meal per day.
Everyone should have a grease-free tray to eat off. That’s exactly why dishwashing machines were invented. When a person in the free world goes to a cafeteria-style restaurant, the stacked plates are steaming, hot and clean. Here in the chow hall on the B side of the prison, where I recently resided, we had to deal with perpetually unclean trays that were “sanitized” in two seconds.
In an email to a Prison Journalism Project editor, Amanda Hernandez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the safety and security of prison staff and detainees are a “number one priority for the agency.”
“[T]his includes cleanliness and sanitation of units,” Hernandez said. “Specifically for these concerns, the agency conducts inspections of kitchens to identify and address areas in need of improvement.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. The scullery that serves the A side chow halls has a dishwasher, which means the trays over there are rarely dirty.
The Stiles Unit is a massive complex, divided into two sides: A and B. Each side corresponds to two buildings, each of which holds over 400 prisoners. On the A side, where I now reside, a fast-moving line shepherds people through one of two chow halls, where we eat on trays cleaned in a dishwasher.
Meanwhile, the line moved slowly on the B side. There is only one chow hall for the B side because the second one is closed. Plus, there were way too few trays. I once waited through two rounds of tray cleaning before I made it to the front of the line. More than once, I counted fewer than 20 available trays.
And there was no dishwasher.
(Days after a PJP editor reached out to the state corrections department for comment, and before I was transferred to the A side of the prison, a stack of brand new black trays appeared in the chow hall.)
Hernandez said both the tray issue and the lack of dishwasher are “under review.” She added that the second dining hall is closed due to repairs but denied that the closure had caused any delays or interruptions.
Peek into the scullery and you could see how the trays were washed on B side. A shirtless kitchen worker whacked the excess food off into a trash can, then dipped the tray briefly into another trash can full of soapy water. Afterwards he rinsed the tray in a third trash can of once-and-only-briefly clean water.
Jose O., another B side resident, always makes sure to carry cotton wipes with him to chow hall. He has several medical issues and must take care of his health. He carries extra wipes with him so he can hand them out to people who forget toilet paper. If it were up to him, he would just eat food from the commissary.
“But I realize my body needs what little vitamins and minerals are found in the chow hall food,” he said.
Craig C. is also a diligent tray wiper, but he said he skips dinner most of the time.
“The scraps aren’t appealing and I try to use those filthy trays as little as possible,” he said. “My prior cellmate was sick as a dog for three weeks. He thought it was the undercooked pork patty. I suspect it was the greasy, dirty tray.”
When I asked kitchen workers why there’s no dishwasher on B side, they always said the same thing: “They don’t care.”
“They” are the administrators of this prison.
But it’s not that simple. Every now and then this prison is so shorthanded that everybody eats on A side. When I walked as a B side resident into one of the chow halls on that side, the line was constantly moving. I never saw anybody wiping their tray. When I went to grab a tray, it was often still hot from the dishwasher.
So why can’t it be this way on B side?
Having a clean tray shows us that we matter. It improves health and hygiene — for prisoners and staff. Illness can spread like wildfire here, and many of us on B side suspected the dirty trays were at least part of the problem. When I glanced around the chow hall, I never saw many people enjoying their meal — but surely we deserve to eat it off a clean surface.
When I reported and wrote this article, I lived on the B side. As we prepared to publish, I was moved in the middle of the night to a cell on the A side. The next day, eating lunch in my new chow hall, I noticed five stacks of 12 clean trays. I was in and out with my tray of chili mac in 10 quick minutes.
