{"id":520,"date":"2009-01-19T00:59:45","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T04:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/?p=520"},"modified":"2009-01-19T00:59:45","modified_gmt":"2009-01-19T04:59:45","slug":"a-sheriff-goes-to-jail-for-not-understanding-operations-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/2009\/01\/19\/a-sheriff-goes-to-jail-for-not-understanding-operations-research\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sheriff Goes to Jail for Not Using Operations Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Alabama sheriff spent time in jail for not feeding his prisoners enough.\u00a0 From the CNN Report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates “woefully insufficient” meals in order to pocket more than $200,000.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

At issue is an Alabama law that attorneys for the inmates claim provides sheriffs with an incentive to skimp on feeding inmates. Under the law, sheriffs are permitted to keep — as personal income — money left over after purchasing food for inmates.<\/p>\n

The state provides sheriffs with $1.75 per day per inmate for food, according to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. However, in a March 2008 opinion, the office affirmed that sheriffs may legally keep what is left over.<\/p>\n

…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A typical dinner was two hot dogs or meat patties; a slice of bread; and mixed vegetables or baked beans, the judge wrote.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, if Sheriff Bartlett had studied operations research, he would have immediately recognized his issue as the well-known “diet problem” in linear programming.\u00a0 A quick google search would have led him to the NEOS page on the subject<\/a>.\u00a0 Some clicks, and the magic of linear programming gives an optimal diet of cost just 96 cents:<\/p>\n

\n

The Optimized Menu<\/h2>\n

The cost of this optimal<\/em> diet is $0.96 per day.<\/p>\n

The Solution and Cost Breakdown by Food<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Food<\/th>\n Servings<\/th>\n Cost ($)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Carrots,Raw<\/td>\n0.24<\/td>\n0.02<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Peanut Butter<\/td>\n3.60<\/td>\n0.25<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Popcorn,Air-Popped<\/td>\n4.82<\/td>\n0.19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Potatoes, Baked<\/td>\n3.54<\/td>\n0.21<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Skim Milk<\/td>\n2.17<\/td>\n0.28<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n

2000 calories, and it meets all the nutritional requirements. I bet the Sheriff wasn’t making 79 cents off each prisoner per day with his plan! I would love to see the lawyers get a hold of this: “But judge: potatoes with peanut butter are the perfect food! Carrots on the side, and milk to wash it down. We even give them popcorn for movie night! What’s not to like?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Alabama sheriff spent time in jail for not feeding his prisoners enough.\u00a0 From the CNN Report: A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates “woefully insufficient” meals in order to pocket more than $200,000. … At issue is an Alabama law that attorneys for … Continue reading “A Sheriff Goes to Jail for Not Using Operations Research”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-applications","category-or-in-the-press"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mat.tepper.cmu.edu\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}