As we all know from Orange Is The New Black, cigarettes are hot property on the black market behind bars. But now it’s emerged that packets of ramen - the dried curly yellowish noodles, reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s Bye Bye Bye-era hair - are prison’s biggest commodity.
‘Because it is cheap, tasty, and rich in calories, ramen has become so valuable that it is used to exchange for other goods’ wrote study author Michael Gibson-Light.
Also, food in US prisons is really bad. Yep, again, just like in OITNB, funding has fallen out of step with the increased number of inmates (the US prison population is 2.3 million) and so everything food-related has gone downhill.
No wonder prisoners want to get their hands on the instant noodley gratification of ramen. They then use it to trade with other foods, clothing, cosmetics, or as payment for laundry and bunk-cleaning. On top of this, they’re used as bargaining chips while gambling, reports the BBC.
Our very lucky very un-incarcerated selves do shudder at the thought of what happens to these fragile packet noodles as they’re shunted from person to person. Because any person who’s made late-night drunk packet ramen (the ultimate hangover prophylactic), the noodles on the surface will break off with friction when handled. So maybe newer, less-fondled packets are worth more to the prisoners? Perhaps people locked up in jail have more to worry about than broken noodles.
Mr Gibson-Light says the turn to ramen from things like cigarettes, stamps and envelopes, is a big deal: ‘Prisoners are so unhappy with the quality and quantity of prison food that they receive that they have begun relying on ramen noodles - a cheap, durable food product - as a form of money…This form of money is not something that changes often or easily, even in the prison underground economy. It takes a major issue or shock to initiate such a change.
He now wants more research to look at how lack of good food for prisoners affects the care they’re given.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.