Why noodles have become commodities among inmates
in the absence of paper money, prisoners had to pick another currency to enable their transactions: cigarettes.
.. cigarettes have been supplanted in the United States by instant ramen. Gibson-Light argues that this dynamic has less to do with the national drop in smoking rates or the banning of cigarettes in some prisons and more to do with prisons’ finances. At the state prison where he conducted his study, budget cuts led to a reduction of the caliber and total number of meals that prisoners received, which meant that the practical value of ramen skyrocketed.
.. “I’ve seen fights over ramen,” one prisoner told him. “Who the fuck gonna fight about ramen noodles? That’s 15 cents on the outs!”
.. In his study, he brings up a dynamic of what’s called “punitive frugality,” in which prisons, in saving money by serving lower-quality food, pass “the burden and cost of nutrition and other needs on to inmates and their families” by compelling prisoners to seek out alternate forms of sustenance
.. What’s striking is that the most sought-after item in American prisons has shifted from cigarettes, coffee, envelopes, or stamps—none of which are essential—to food, a necessity.