Ramen noodles are familiar to most Americans for their low cost, long shelf-life and dose of salty calories.
Now the instant noodle dish has taken on another role: as the unofficial currency of choice inside the U.S. prison system. That’s according to research from Michael Gibson-Light, a doctoral candidate in the University of Arizona School of Sociology, who spent a year researching labor within a male state prison with more than 5,000 inmates.
One surprising finding, he wrote, was “the role of ramen noodles” as money.
While tobacco products have long served as the de facto informal currency of the prison system, cigarettes are now relegated below the value of ramen noodles. The main reason appears to be cutbacks in meal spending as prisons seek to control costs by privatizing services such as food and health care. That has resulted in smaller rations and poorer food quality, which leads some prisoners to seek out ramen as a way to supplement their diets.
This also creates a dark side to ramen: Inmates who don’t pay up. Some of them enter protective custody Cont. (Video/Autoplay)
Story from - CBS News
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