Prisoners Like Me Are Being Held Hostage to Price Hikes

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/02/opinion/inflation-prison.html

Free link: https://archive.ph/CyiNu#selection-296.1-296.2

The hole in the sole of my shoe is a problem. The plastic bag I sandwich between my two best pairs of socks can do only so much during the days we’re let outside. It protects well against the rain that soaks in through my shoe, but Idaho snow is a formidable foe.

The problem is that for the price of a new pair of white Reebok Classics, the cheapest shoes available at the commissary, I could stave off hunger pains for at least a few weeks more. I could continue scrubbing my parts and pieces with a soap bar bigger than the matchbook-size, prison-issued bar. And I could wash my sweaty clothes in a toilet with real detergent.

The reason I’m washing my clothes in a toilet is that I live in the desert just south of Boise, at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. I’m eight years into a 15-to-40-year sentence, handed down for two counts of arson committed during a six-month stretch while I was in a drug-induced psychosis.

(snip)

But to get these things, prisoners at my institution have to contend with prices set by Keefe. In exchange for exclusive access to our incarcerated population, Keefe rewards the Idaho Department of Correction with a revenue-sharing arrangement that guarantees a yearly minimum of $1.25 million plus 40 percent of the gross beyond an annual base sales target. That’s according to the Keefe Group-Idaho Department of Correction contract I received via a public records request. As a result of this arrangement, the two entities are able to benefit from working closely together to leverage market tumult, usually at the expense of their shared clients.

[MLAA]

1. Healthcare, prisons and education should not be profit centers.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Too bad; they're designed to make people money.

[Nevilledog]

4. It's slavery.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. Really! There is a lot of abuses reported over the years on these 'profit centers', that I have

watched or heard. Granted,

I do understand that prisoners would like to have a source of income during their term in prison, to buy books or cigarettes or whatever, but paying them such ridiculously low hourly rates isn't fair either. They are already paying for their crime(s) by being in prison, how many times must a jailed person pay for the crime they committed?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. "how many times must a jailed person pay for the crime they committed?"

Enough to make a nice fat profit for someone else.

[MLAA]

8. True. Making a profit off their essentials is a crime itself.

[MLAA]

9. Combine low pay with overpriced goods is criminal itself.

[jimfields33]

7. Especially universities

None of them should be able to have endowments that continue year to year. It should go towards tuition every year to every student.

[Solly Mack]

3. K&R

[Johnny2X2X]

10. No rehabilitation

I know many people who've been in jail and prison, the entire process just drains wealth from families. From bond, to court costs, the the costs of living in a prison. It's all a huge contributor to generational poverty.

They make it so hard to get by that more crime seems like the only way out.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

11. Afternoon kick.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. Evening kick.