Why Serbia spends more on feeding prisoners than on public soup-kitchen users

Novi Sad plans to spend more public money on feeding prisoners than on feeding people who rely on social soup kitchens. The city allocated 39 million dinars for its 2026 programme for socially vulnerable people, while the Novi Sad District Prison set aside 57 million dinars for food supplies.

The difference is not explained by the number of people alone. The prison has an official capacity of 304 inmates, yet its food budget exceeds the city’s soup-kitchen allocation. Users interviewed about both systems described a sharp difference in provision: a soup-kitchen user receives one cooked meal a day, while a prisoner receives breakfast, a snack, lunch and dinner.

At the Novi Sad prison in Klisa, meals are served at roughly 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Soup-kitchen standards vary by municipality, but users generally receive about 500 grams of cooked food and a loaf of bread.

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Prisoners are in prison 24 hours a day and the state has an obligation to care for someone who remains in its institution all the time.

Economics professor Dušan Pavlović said the state must provide meals to people held in its institutions. “Prisoners are in prison 24 hours a day and the state has an obligation to care for someone who remains in its institution all the time,” he said. Gordana Matković of the Centre for Social Policy said prisoners receive food because they are detained, not because they are poor. “The question is whether our social protection system is appropriate, what people receive as social assistance and whether it is adequate,” she said.

Eligibility for soup kitchens is not governed uniformly across Serbia. Each local government decides who can use the service and how much money to allocate, leaving the level of assistance partly dependent on where a person lives.

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The question is whether our social protection system is appropriate, what people receive as social assistance and whether it is adequate.