Chapter 1076 Enter the Warehouse (1/2)

The cooks were not prisoners, but employees of the GEO company. They were ordinary

people with good personalities. Because Li Du had come to teach them how to make

noodles, they were friendly to him.

GEO Corporation was a well-known private prison company in the United States. It has

undertaken the entire management of many prisons.

Private prisons were a feature in America because financing correctional facilities had

become a huge economic burden for the government, which led to increased

outsourcing.

The United States spent a lot of money every year to manage its prisoners. In 2010,

according to the Bureau of Prisons, the United States spent $48.5 billion on prison

reeducation through labor. Moreover, the numbers of prisoners were growing fast.

According to Li Du's knowledge, the total number of prisoners in the United States was

more than 2.2 million, and one in 110 adults was behind bars.

He knew this number because he had read a very interesting report about the disorder

in American prisons.

California's prison expenses were relatively high. Every year, the state would spend

$50,000 on each prisoner, so in order to save money, California started exporting

prisoners to other states. If the prisons became too crowded they would release

prisoners in advance, and even prisoners on the death row would spend years waiting

for the execution of their sentence because there were so many of them.

Meanwhile, the dough was now ready to work with, and the next step was familiar to the

cooks: rolling out the dough, making noodles with a noodle machine, steaming them,

and finally frying them in a pan of oil.

Noodles had to be fried at a low temperature, so the stove needed to be off and on

repeatedly. Li Du took care of that, teaching the cook how to control the oil temperature.

After taking the noodles out of the oil and drying them in the sun, the end result was a

simple, quick to cook food.

The cooks tasted it and raised their thumbs, praising Li Du. ”Oriental cooking, amazing!”

Li Du boasted, ”We can even make noodles in different flavors. You want spicy? When

you make the noodles, put some hot sauce in the dough. You want tomato flavor? Add

tomato sauce, or if you want something sweet, add sugar.”

The cooks nodded. The white cook, with his big blue eyes and big nose, patted him on

the shoulder.

Li Du laughed. ”Did I say something funny?”

The head cook shook his head and said, ”You don't understand, young man.”

This was why the prisoners loved the work in the kitchen.

Because the budget was so low, Miami prisons have had to economize on their

inmates' meals.

Instead of three hot meals a day, prisoners now had two hot meals and one cold meal a

day on weekdays, and only two meals a day on weekends.

This was not about the Miami penitentiary skimping on food, but rather a policy known

across the United States as ”penal economy”. The goal was not only to save the

government money but to punish criminals for their transgressions against society.

As a result, many prisoners who had to do taxing physical labor every day could not get

along on a diet of such poor quantity and quality.

Therefore, the prisoners liked to work in the kitchen. Although it was hard work, they

would have the opportunity to eat something extra. Some prisoners with big appetites

even gathered the leftover food from every meal.

Hearing this left Li Du dumbfounded. The United States always advertised its