I want you to imagine sitting down to a meal, taking a bite of rice and beans, and suddenly feeling something crunch between your teeth. You spit it out, look closely, and discover you’ve just bitten into a dead baby mouse.

Now imagine you’re locked in a jail cell. You can’t get up and leave. You can’t send the food back to the kitchen. You can’t decide to eat somewhere else tomorrow.

And when you tell a correctional officer what happened, you’re allegedly told to flush the mouse down the toilet.

That is what Kevin Condray says happened to him in a Washington, D.C., jail in 2023. His account is among the allegations in a class-action lawsuit filed against the District.

I read this story on Thursday’s Rush Hour, and I have to tell you something. It made me sick.

Not just the mouse. The apparent indifference.

According to the lawsuit described by The Washington Post, inmates have reported finding cockroaches in oatmeal, rodents in salads, droppings in grits, a spider in cake, and something resembling fur in scalloped potatoes.

One inmate described biting into a mouse whose feet appeared to be missing. Think about the horror of wondering whether you had just swallowed part of that animal.

Another reported finding an insect in his Thanksgiving meal. Thanksgiving! A day when most Americans are sitting around tables with their families, enjoying food and giving thanks for their blessings. This man was in a cell, wondering what kind of creature had ended up in his cranberry sauce.

These are allegations, and they deserve a thorough investigation. But the accounts are detailed, disturbing, and far too serious to dismiss.

And then there are the alleged responses from jail personnel.

One complaint reportedly received an answer suggesting that a mouse couldn’t have survived the cooking temperature. Another inmate said he was told that people in other countries eat cockroaches.

Excuse me?

Since when is the standard for an American correctional facility whether somebody, somewhere else in the world, considers a cockroach a delicacy?

We are the United States of America. We do not feed human beings vermin and call it correctional management.

I am a law-and-order conservative. I believe criminals should be held accountable. I believe violent offenders belong behind bars, not back on the streets terrorizing innocent families. I have no patience for a revolving-door justice system that treats the rights of criminals as more important than the safety of their victims.

But none of that has anything to do with feeding people contaminated food.

A prison sentence is a punishment imposed by the law. It is not a license for the government to degrade a human being.

And let’s remember something else. Jails hold people awaiting trial, including people who have not been convicted of the charges against them. The presumption of innocence doesn’t disappear because somebody has been placed in a cell.

Even when a person has been convicted of a terrible crime, the government still has obligations. Feed him properly. Keep the facility sanitary. Provide necessary medical care. Protect people from abuse.

That is not being soft on crime.

That is being civilized.

What particularly bothers me is the political selectivity surrounding this issue.

We’ve seen elected officials and activists protest conditions at immigration detention facilities. They have every right to raise legitimate concerns about how people are treated in government custody. I’ve said myself that credible allegations of mistreatment in those facilities should be investigated.

But where is that same sustained attention when the people complaining are sitting in the D.C. jail?

Where are the cameras? Where are the congressional visits? Where is the outrage over the allegations that inmates have been eating mice and cockroaches?

These aren’t new concerns. The D.C. jail drew national attention when January 6 defendants complained about conditions there. Other inmates have raised complaints as well. The latest lawsuit suggests that serious questions about sanitation and treatment remain unresolved.

I don’t care whether somebody is a January 6 defendant, an immigration detainee, a drug dealer, a thief, or a person who hasn’t yet had his day in court.

If the government has taken away your freedom, it has assumed responsibility for your basic safety and welfare.

That’s the deal. And the government doesn’t get to break its end of the deal because the person in the cell is unpopular.

I also don’t want to hear that demanding decent conditions means we have to empty the prisons.

Nonsense.

We can keep dangerous criminals incarcerated and insist that the facilities holding them meet basic standards. Those positions aren’t contradictory. They’re perfectly compatible.

In fact, I’ve long believed we ought to take a more serious look at what happens to people while they’re incarcerated.

I’d like to see meaningful work become part of the prison experience, with inmates earning fair compensation and a portion of that money set aside for the day they’re released.

Imagine somebody leaving prison with actual work experience, some savings, and at least a fighting chance to begin again. Wouldn’t that be preferable to turning people loose with nothing, after years spent in filthy, dangerous conditions?

I’m not talking about turning prison into a vacation resort. I’m talking about making incarceration serve a purpose beyond warehousing human beings until their sentences expire.

And for the people who will never be released because their crimes are too serious, the obligation to treat them humanely remains.

There is a reason this subject gets under my skin. Government has enormous power over a person in custody. It decides where that person sleeps, when he eats, what medical attention he receives, and whether he can even step outside.

With that power comes responsibility.

A prisoner cannot call a restaurant and order dinner because the jail kitchen served something revolting. He cannot walk down the street and buy groceries. He cannot simply leave an unsafe building.

He is entirely dependent on the very institution he may be accusing of mistreatment.

That’s why allegations like these demand attention, independent scrutiny, and accountability wherever the evidence leads.

I want the people who commit crimes to face justice. I want victims and their families protected. I want our streets safe.

But I also want to live in a country where we understand that punishment and cruelty are not the same thing.

If somebody has broken the law, prosecute him. If he’s convicted, sentence him appropriately. If he belongs in prison, keep him there.

But for heaven’s sake, give the man a meal that doesn’t have a mouse in it.

That shouldn’t be a liberal position or a conservative position.

It ought to be the bare minimum of American decency.

— Bo