Q. Do you have to do the search for chametz when in jail when your only personal area is your bunk and a shelf? There is going to be chametz anyway from the other inmate.
A. Poiskim rule that one hospitalized during Pesach should do bedikas chometz on his personal belongings on the eve of Pesach without a brocho. (Toras Hayoledes 43,1 – Bedikas Chometz Ubiuroy 3,51 – Piskey Teshuvos 437,1) since even if he is a paying patient he could be moved from room to room at the sole discretion of the hospital staff (ibid.).
Horav Shlomo Miller's Shlit"a opinion is that although a prison inmate has even less privileges than a hospital patient he still has to do a chometz search on what is available to him.
The fact that there is still chometz on the premises that belongs to the other inmate, does not exempt him from doing all he can to avoid possessing or eating his own chometz.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit"a
Important Numbers
