With a weak economy, everyone is feeling the ramifications of a state with declining revenue. The Huffington Post reports:
More than 20,000 Texas prisoners have been eating two meals a day on weekends since April, in a bid by the prison system to cut food-service costs… The two-a-day weekend meal plan is part of an effort to cut the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s budget by $2.8 million; other cost-cutting measures include giving prisoners sliced bread instead of hamburger or hot dog buns and offering powdered milk instead of carton milk.”
Florida is also using cost-cutting measures, but this is more beneficial to decreasing the prison population. “Florida lawmakers passed two bills earlier this week that would expand the state’s prison rehabilitation program and reduce jail time for non-violent criminals in a bid to make some headway in the state’s $2.3 billion budget deficit.”