WASHINGTON — After a week of controversy surrounding its abrupt removal of pork dishes from the national menu for federal inmates, the government did an about-face this week and put pork roast back on the bill of fare.
The Bureau of Prisons disclosed the decision hours after a Senate leader expressed dismay at what he implied was a wasteful survey of inmates’ food preferences and a lack of transparency.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, warned that the “unprecedented” decision to remove pork from federal prisons would “have consequences on the livelihoods of American citizens who work in the pork industry.”
Grassley is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the federal prison system.
The new pork policy has affected 206,000 federal inmates since it started Oct. 1. It was praised by the chicken and beef industries.
Officials had explained last week that based on annual surveys of inmates’ food preferences, pork lost its appeal in the prison system.
