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'I don’t think anybody has a right to condiments'

Date published: 2/8/2002

By The Associated Press

YORK, Pa. - York County Prison officials have set down a new policy for inmates: Condiments will cost you.

Starting Monday, prisoners will have to purchase items like ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper and sugar if they want to spice up their meals.

Warden Thomas Hogan said the policy is being implemented to save money, and because prisoners often trash the condiments.

“They just throw them away,” Hogan said. “They’re wasted.”

Hogan didn’t have a price list for the items, but a letter sent to The York Dispatch by prisoner Leroy Freeman and signed by 20 inmates said the prison will charge 8 cents for a ketchup or relish packet, 10 cents for a mustard or tartar-sauce packet, $2.10 for 100 sugar packets, 25 cents for 10 salt or pepper packets and 6 cents for an Equal packet.

“Now the county is attempting to serve such a meal that my dog would refuse, without salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, and etc.,” Freeman wrote.

The inmate called the measure a “blatant display of not recognizing our human rights.”

But Larry Frankel, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Pennsylvania chapter, isn’t sure the inmates have a case.

“I don’t think anybody has a right to condiments,” he said.

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Date published: 2/8/2002