PETA: Prison should serve flesh-free meals to cannibal inmate

posted at 1:58 pm on February 2, 2012 by Howard Portnoy

It is a day for tying up loose ends. First came word that prosecutors are seeking a more stringent sentence for a store clerk who pled guilty to feeding female shoppers semen-laced yogurt. Now comes the next chapter in a story reported last week about a man who feasted on the eye and brain of another whom he had hacked to death.

A short while ago, I received an email from David Perle of PETA stating that his organization is requesting that the jail housing accused hatchet murderer and cannibal Tyree Lincoln Smith

help quell Smith’s apparent thirst for blood by providing him with flesh-free, vegetarian meals, which would be cost-effective and ensure that Smith does not contribute to any needless violence.

The email further states:

‘Studies show that vegetarian meals can reduce violence among offenders—and if anyone needs a reduction in violence, it’s someone who killed and ate another human being,’ says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. ‘PETA can help New Haven Correctional Center introduce a menu of bean burritos instead of burgers and so save many lives.’

Finally, there is a copy of the letter sent by Lindsay Rajt, PETA’s Associate Director of Campaigns, to Warden Jose Feliciano Jr. of the New Haven Correctional Center, where Smith is being held:

On behalf of PETA and our more than 3 million members and supporters, including thousands across Connecticut, I am writing to suggest that you help ensure that alleged killer and cannibal Tyree Smith swears off flesh forever by providing him with exclusively vegan meals while he is in your custody.

If Smith did, in fact, kill Angel Gonzalez and eat parts of his body, that would demonstrate a disturbing taste for flesh. Opting to feed him only vegan foods and denying him meat (flesh) could diminish such a tendency and thus potentially help protect staff and neighboring inmates. In fact, a meat-free meal plan could benefit all your other inmates too. Some prison operators—including those at Alabama’s highest-security prison, William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility—have found that switching inmates to vegetarian meals can be a successful part of a violence-reduction program.

Every vegan meal served at your facility would spare helpless animals from their own death penalties. In today’s industrialized meat and dairy industries, animals face cruelty not unlike that which Smith allegedly inflicted on Angel Gonzalez: Chickens and turkeys have their throats cut while they’re still conscious, piglets have their tails and testicles cut off without being given any painkillers, fish are suffocated or cut open while they’re still alive on the decks of fishing boats, and calves are taken away from their mothers within hours of birth.

Vegan meals are healthy and easy to prepare, and they can be less expensive than meat-based dishes. I hope you’ll agree that going vegan is the best way for Smith and other inmates to start making more compassionate choices. PETA would be happy to help you design the perfect cruelty-free meal plan for the New Haven Correctional Center.

Vegan meals may be easy to prepare, but I would submit they are no easier than killing your prey and eating it raw. In any case, PETA’s barking up the wrong tree. The person they should be contacting is Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who runs the Maricopa County Jail and has expressed repeatedly his view that “inmates should be treated as harshly as legally possible to emphasize the punishment aspect of their incarceration.” What punishment could be harsher than being forced to eat lentil and brown rice cutlets or quinoa and black-eyed pea salad?

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