Butler County’s controversial Sheriff Richard K. Jones has been grabbing headlines this month because of his so-called “warden burger.”
It’s a meal he serves inmates three times a day for seven days in a row when they are in disciplinary isolation. Some experts have said the burger should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Jones has said it is approved by his jail’s dietician and meets a person’s daily nutritional needs.
WYSO spoke with Report for America Corps Member and Cincinnati Enquirer Journalist Erin Glynn about her reporting on the burger.
Transcript (edited lightly for length and clarity)
Chris Welter: How did you come across this story, Erin?
Erin Glynn: I found a request for a new food service contractor for the jail that listed out all the jail's usual recipes — including a recipe for the warden burger. So I reached out to the sheriff, and asked if I could ask him a couple of questions about it. He invited me to come in and try it with him.
Chris: So you actually ate a Warden Burger?
Erin: I did. I took a few bites. It wasn't terrible, but I only had a few bites of it, and the people who have to eat it, eat it for 21 meals straight.
Chris: What's in it?
Erin: It's basically a meatloaf-like concoction. It's made of ground turkey, oatmeal, cabbage, and some other vegetables. It's mixed up and then baked at 350 degrees like a meatloaf. They serve it with two slices of bread.
Chris: What is Sheriff Jones's attitude about the burger?
Erin: He's very much of the mind that it's jail, that people don't get to choose what they eat, and that he's going to run the jail how he sees fit.
He said the jail doesn't have a lot of disciplinary issues, which he attributes not just to the warden burger, but to the general running of it. He said it's not cruel and unusual punishment, and he doesn't think the warden burger is that bad. He told me that he actually doesn't mind eating it.
Chris: What do the critics of the burger say?
Erin: I did speak to Leslie Soble, who researched all kinds of prison food for this 2020 report for Impact Justice, which is a California-based nonprofit. She believes that the warden burger in all its forms is absolutely cruel and unusual punishment. She talked to me a lot about the socio-cultural and physiological impacts of using food as a punishment — that it can stay with somebody for life. It can really mess up your relationship with food, and it can feel dehumanizing to be served something that is expressly a punishment.
Chris: In Ohio, is what Sheriff Jones is doing with the warden burger legal?
Erin: The jails aren't supposed to be using warden burgers as a punishment. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections standards require that all inmates that are in jail should be served the same meal. In general, you're not supposed to use food expressly for disciplinary purposes, and the menus always have to meet basic nutritional requirements and have the approval of a dietician, which I should say that the warren burger does.
Chris: What does Sheriff Jones make of those regulations?
Erin: He said the state prisons are overcrowded, understaffed and full of violence, and that he is not going to listen to what the state has to say until those issues are addressed. He feels that he runs the jail in a way that's effective.
The state has never issued penalties against the Butler County Jail for serving the warden burger, and the only penalty under the Ohio administrative code that they could take would be to sue the jail in the Butler County Court of Common Pleas. A spokesperson with the ODRC said they've never taken that kind of legal action before, and she believes it would only be used in very egregious circumstances.
Chris: One last question, Erin. In the course of your reporting for this story, is there anything else that stood out to you?
Erin: I do think that the warden burger raises a lot of questions about whether food should be used as punishment. One thing I was really struck by was the lawsuit in Wisconsin where a prisoner lost an alarming amount of weight. I think it was 40 pounds. He just could not keep the loaf he was eating down and got very sick. In that case, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals did say that if food is sickening, it violates the Eighth Amendment. So, I mean, there's a spectrum between unappetizing and sickening, and I was just struck by that as I was reading about this.
