After an outcry from the pork industry and a letter from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Bureau of Prisons has reversed its decision to remove pork from federal prisons. The Bureau has previously decided to remove pork from the menus after it had been given low ratings in a survey of prisoners.
Sen. Grassley, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the federal prison system, protested the decision in a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels, reports National Public Radio. Grassley expressed concern about the lack of transparency used in the decision and the taxpayer dollars used to conduct surveys of prisoners’ food wishes. He also asked to see the data to back up the claims that pork was rated poorly.
“Pork is largely a product of the United States that provides tremendous economic benefit to the country along with being an economical food. For that reason alone, it doesn’t make sense to eliminate it from prison meals, but to spend taxpayer dollars surveying prisoners about what they did or didn’t like about the meals they were being served seems completely backwards,” Grassley said.
