important aspect, but often relegated in the administration of many Latin American countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela or Brazil. This fact affects a large group of people in vulnerable conditions, who are also frequently criminalized, so their precarious conditions tend to become naturalized.However, prisons are not only a physical space for penalization, they are the place of residence and coexistence of people who have lost their freedom due to punishment, but not their rights as human beings.By regulation, these people must receive dignified treatment; In this process, food plays a fundamental role. To this end, various international documents establish the rules and procedures so that persons deprived of their liberty have the right to receive food that responds in quantity, quality and hygienic conditions to adequate and sufficient nutrition. 

 

In Cuba, the most recent number of inmates declared by official media dates from 2012, where the Granma newspaper counted 57,337 people. Other independent studies have attempted to update this inventory, such as a report  presented by the human rights organization Prisoners Defenders in 2020, which estimated around 90,000 people incarcerated in Cuba.According to this calculation, the island would be the country with the most incarcerated people in the world in proportion to its population, above the United States, Rwanda, Turkmenistan and El Salvador. 

 

Between the months of June and September, the Food Monitor Program (FMP) carried out a study on the conditions of food in persons deprived of liberty in the jails and prisons of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). Twenty-five interviews were conducted with former inmates and relatives of interned persons, with different sentences and security regimes, who were sanctioned in various institutions, in four provinces of the country. Most of the testimonies denied what was stipulated in the Regulations of the Cuban Penitentiary System in December 2016, which states: “The prison administration guarantees inmates a diet that meets dietary and hygiene standards in quantity and quality, taking into account their state of health, the recommendations of the doctor and the nature of the work (...) The inmates will have drinking water.”

 

One of the most questioned aspects during our interviews was access to drinking water. Most of the interviewees said they did not have this benefit in their internment institutions.The testimonies agreed on the absence of a water installation, and on the need to store it when it was connected. According to the general description of the liquid, there was repeated access to stagnant water, coming from unsanitary containers, sometimes with sediment. In other institutions reviewed, especially in the PNR units, access to water was from the outside and prior request to the guard. An inmate at the Aguilera police station recounts that on the days he was held incommunicado in the cell, he did not have running water, but instead had to ask the officer on duty for drinking water. Another person hospitalized for forty days at the Bellotex Technician reports having suffered from great thirst and related discomforts, such as headache, due to having managed to drink water only once a day during the aforementioned period.

 

80% of the people interviewed denounced the low quality of the food whose main components were rehydrated powdered egg, croquette, soup or a cake with egg and flour known as "thermal paste", reminiscent of "nutraloaf" or "disciplinary bread". ” recognized in Latin American countries as a form of punishment.The impact of the low quality of the food can be distinguished in that the majority of the inmates claimed to have skipped meals until the 3rd and 4th day of confinement without anyone worrying about it. A person who was admitted to the Técnicos – where se  carry out the cases under investigation such as 100 and Aldabó, Aguilera, Villa Marista – comments that the food there is especially bad. In his experience, this problem, together with the humidity and poor ventilation of the cells, hits the immune system so that when the defendants are transferred to the destination prison they already show evident deterioration. 

 

On the specific issue of hygiene, some reports carried out by independent media show recurrent outbreaks of food poisoning in prison networks, where inmates must receive medical attention with anti-vomiting agents due to expired or improperly handled food.For example, in April of this year an outbreak of intestinal poisoning was reported in the Valle Grande maximum security prison, where at least five inmates had to be hospitalized with symptoms of dehydration. 

 

As a result of these conditions, many inmates have presented deficiency diseases that remain even after being released.When asked if the state of health worsened, the majority agreed in the affirmative. An inmate at Kilo 5 replies: "Not in my body, but in the body of a companion of my galley, who was so intoxicated that he never went to the dining room in the month and a half that we were together, except to take his portion in the dining room and give it to me because I didn't have regular visitors and therefore I didn't have any food stored”. Likewise, an inmate in the Agüica Prison affirms: “I lost a lot of weight. That diet greatly affected my state of health because I am diabetic, hypertensive, I have glaucoma, scleroderma, which is a degenerative disease. All these diseases worsened in the first 13 months of confinement. The only thing I could eat in the prison canteen was boiled eggs.” Another inmate at the Bellontex Technician suffered from two hypoglycemias or low blood sugar in the first month he was incarcerated. For his part, an inmate from Villa Marista acknowledges that he had "certain advantages and benefits." At the time of his arrest he was overweight but during his three-year imprisonment, he lost 144 pounds and five teeth, in addition to developing circulatory problems and nerve damage. 

 

A recurring solution of the directors of these centers to provide sufficient food to a growing prison population has been to delegate nutritional responsibility to the families of the inmates. However, "the crates" that are delivered by them -every 30 or 45 days according to the hospitalization regulations of each institution-  in most cases fail to cover the basic dietary provisions much less the medical ones.In general, families prioritize cheap products, accessible in the market and with a longer shelf life, which are often the most harmful products and the least consistent in nutritional terms. Composed of starches, sugars and ultra-processed foods, the most common foods in these deliveries are cookies and toast, powdered milk, mayonnaise, instant coffee, preserves,  syrups for soft drinks, as well as oils, seasonings and sugar intended to improve the taste of the food delivered by the prison kitchen. 

 

Even so, all of the interviewees refer to the family pack as the main source of food followed by the barter of their components.Other non-legal contractual forms are the purchase of food from the same dining room staff, or from other prisoners through dissimilar items. These food hierarchies become more important if they are related to disciplinary measures, where according to the testimonies reviewed, the last meal of the day could be taken as a form of punishment. The bag was equally affected if the inmates were sent to punishment cells, in which receiving this type of supplies is prohibited.

 

The living conditions in a prison constitute one of the primary factors in determining the feeling of self-esteem and dignity of the inmates. The quality of the food they receive and the place where that food is served, access to water, access to sanitary facilities, are all elements that greatly influence the feeling of well-being.Despite the factual and legal circumstances that require the imprisonment of these people, they are considered equally vulnerable due to their condition of inferiority and defenselessness since they do not have sufficient primary tools to fend for themselves, demanding greater responsibility from the State in the establishment of sufficiently solid policies.

 

Everything raised might seem too distant to many individual realities. Food insecurity in detention and penance centers has been naturalized by the very people who have suffered it. However, it is worth remembering that we are subjects of rights, that a healthy diet is an inherent asset. It is also worth noting that, given the extensive Cuban penal system, which criminalizes a wide variety of actions, and considering the post-J11 penal violence, a large part of those currently detained are very young people, in stages of development, women, mothers , but also parents and grandparents who deserve respect for their integrity, beginning with the right to adequate food.