While families across the nation gather for their festive feasts, a starkly different Christmas dinner is served behind bars. The quality and variety of meals offered to prisoners on 25 December varies dramatically from one institution to another, with some enjoying a lavish spread and others receiving little more than a basic sandwich.
From Festive Feasts to Filled Baguettes: A National Postcode Lottery
Former inmate Jamie Robinson, who spent 12 consecutive Christmases in custody between the ages of 18 and 30, has shed light on the reality of the festive season in prison. Having been held in 28 different UK prisons, including HMP Preston and Strangeways, he explains that for many inmates, Christmas is just another day to endure.
Speaking on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly podcast, Robinson, who runs the Jail Tales TikTok page, stated: "You get Christmas dinner but it's just another day you want to get out of the way. You want New Year to get out of the way too so you start a fresh year, so you're a year closer to going home."
However, the dinner itself is subject to a stark postcode lottery. Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveals extreme contrasts. In 2014, HMP Stafford offered inmates a staggering choice of seven main courses, including:
- Roast Turkey with Cranberry Sauce and Stuffing
- Roast Pork with Apple Sauce and Stuffing
- Homemade Nut Roast
- Chicken and Spinach Curry and Rice
- Fish with Lemon and Prawn Dressing
- Sausage and Bacon Roll with Roast Potatoes
- Stuffed Butternut Squash or Noodle Grill
The Budget Behind the Festive Plate
This extravagance was far from universal. That same year, inmates at HMP Belmarsh were served a filled baguette with choices like Coronation Chicken, Tuna and Cucumber, or Cheese and Tomato. HMP Buckley Hall offered an All Day Breakfast bap or a Tuna Bap, served with crisps.
More recent data from Christmas Day 2021 shows HMP Leicester provided a more traditional, if less extensive, festive menu. Inmates could choose from halal roast turkey and stuffing, a vegan Quorn fillet, or roast beef with a Yorkshire pudding, followed by fruit pudding or fresh fruit.
The budget for these meals is tightly controlled. At the time of the FOI requests, the prison service allocated approximately £2.02 per prisoner per day to cover all meals and drinks in public sector prisons in England and Wales. By 2021, this had risen slightly to £2.17. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson clarified that Christmas meals are funded from within this existing budget, at "no extra cost to the taxpayer or the prisoners."
A Glimpse of Festive Menus Across the Estate
The variation extends beyond Christmas Day itself. At HMP Leicester in 2021, Boxing Day offered a choice of halal turkey cordon bleu, vegetable pie, gammon steak, or a vegetable Kiev, served with wedges and beans.
This patchwork of provision highlights the lack of a standardised national menu for the festive period in the prison system. The experience of Christmas behind bars, from the food on the plate to the atmosphere on the wing, remains profoundly shaped by the individual establishment's policies, budget management, and catering contracts.
For long-term prisoners like Jamie Robinson, the meal is a brief respite in a sentence where the primary focus is on the passage of time and the hope of eventual release, with the New Year representing a more significant milestone than the Christmas dinner itself.
