4 ms·

Back in college I used to do odd programming jobs for local companies to make ends meet. (It was basically contracting, but I was too young to know that at the

by bilbo0s 10y ago

Back in college I used to do odd programming jobs for local companies to make ends meet. (It was basically contracting, but I was too young to know that at the time.) Anyway, one of the jobs I did back then was to move a Paradox db to Access. (Yes, this was a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG time ago.) It was for a company that provided goods to jails around the state for the commissaries, as well as providing food for the inmates meals. I recall doing double takes at the prices that they were charging for some of the things they were "selling". A simple small bag of Cheetos would be marked up 5 or 6 hundred percent. Sanitary goods might be marked up a thousand percent. The list went on and on. It was crazy. And it was, most likely, VERY good money for that firm. I don't know if they have gotten rid of those firms, but that is one place where A LOT of money was being made at the time. The more prisoners there were, the more money that company would make. Because the prisoners would buy these goods from the commissaries at ENORMOUS markups. Not only that, but I always thought there was a HUGE potential externality built into that business. I mean, this is just speculation, but let's suppose companies like this supply prisons as well as jails. Well you could have a prisoner that is allowed to buy Cheetos and Snickers bars and sit around and get obese for his 30 year term. Only at year 20 he comes down with diabetes, or heart disease. (Not surprising.) And the tax payer is actually stuck with the bill for the medical care for the last 10 years, even though those companies made all the money off of selling the prisoner the Cheetos that contributed to the heart disease. That job really was eye-opening for me.

jrochkind1 10y ago
I bet the jails were getting kickbacks, legally or illegally.
- ta_donk_gt 10y ago
  It's possible, but either way the same abuse would be occurring. It happens for the same reason Tylenol is charged at like $60/pill during a hospital stay, and while we're at it the same reason the criminal justice system is so out of control: These people don't answer to anyone. Nobody is going to stop them. Talk and dream all you want about voting corruption away, it is not going to change. The system is too entrenched, and there are too many powerful people that have too much to lose to ever let it happen.
  - jrochkind1 10y ago
    just got to give them more to lose otherwise, that's how it works.
  - briandear 10y ago
    Tylenol is $60 per pill not because of profiteering but because of cross subsidization. They mark that pill up to cover loses in other areas.
  - phonon 10y ago
    "Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does, to cover the cost of the time spent of the nurses' shifts medicating patients. (Not to mention the various other huge (legitimate!) types of overhead a hospital has.)
    - ta_donk_gt 10y ago
      > "Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does That is what I stated. And band-aids are roughly the same price per instance. And there are also staff-related line items. And there is a completely separate EMT bill if you are transferred from the scene of an accident. A stay of about 16 hours with no procedures, just a transfer by EMT, a few bandages and Tylenol, with about 30 minutes total of staff interaction was billed at almost $15,000. There are absolutely "legitimate" charges involved, and there is a markup that would be considered legitimate, but there is also a lot of abuse that goes straight to overpaid doctors, overpaid hospital administrators and insurance companies, in the same way prison's are charged 6x or more for miscellaneous items. Legitimate charges would be listed as legitimate line items, not hidden in other marked up line items.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        The problem is not be $15 bottle of Tylenol. It's that itemizing hospital services is a total fiction given the necessity of hospitals subsidizing those who cannot pay by overcharging those who can pay.
  - phonon 10y ago
bluejekyll 10y ago
What should the markup be? What you say sounds very high indeed, but there is a certain markup that will be required. Why? Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store (I'm making some assumptions here) each bag of Cheetos needs to be individually inspected to make sure that nothing is being smuggled into the prison. This would go for every item being sold into the prison. It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was competition in selling into prisons, but my guess is you'd end up with some kind of split duopoly at best where things would be about the same as they are now. The reason is that no one can just establish a new business, which is the most important thing for creating competition.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  >Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store Why so? Here they just got a few pallets of normal grocery store stuff and mostly used inmate labor to run it. Really simple and costs essentially nothing to operate, especially since they don't have to be open every day. The only complexity comes from potentially transporting the inmates to the commissary, but that's not a particularly efficient way to do it when you can just give inmates paper "menus" where they can just fill in their orders and have them brought to their cell blocks.
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    The reason (the only reasonable one o can come up with) is the added cost of inspection before selling them. I don't disagree that the mark up mentioned in the post was extreme, but I don't have a good idea of what it would be otherwise. Based on my having visited places with high tariffs, or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon.
    - marcusgarvey 10y ago
      > the added cost of inspection before selling them. I wouldn't expect the supplier to bear this cost; it's the jailers who are doing the inspecting.
DefaultUserHN 10y ago
That is sad. Companies should not be able to profit off of people like this. This is why we need someone like Hillary. She should be able to put an end these corrupt government programs.

by bilbo0s 10y ago

jrochkind1 10y ago

I bet the jails were getting kickbacks, legally or illegally.

ta_donk_gt 10y ago
It's possible, but either way the same abuse would be occurring. It happens for the same reason Tylenol is charged at like $60/pill during a hospital stay, and while we're at it the same reason the criminal justice system is so out of control: These people don't answer to anyone. Nobody is going to stop them. Talk and dream all you want about voting corruption away, it is not going to change. The system is too entrenched, and there are too many powerful people that have too much to lose to ever let it happen.
- jrochkind1 10y ago
  just got to give them more to lose otherwise, that's how it works.
- briandear 10y ago
  Tylenol is $60 per pill not because of profiteering but because of cross subsidization. They mark that pill up to cover loses in other areas.
- phonon 10y ago
  "Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does, to cover the cost of the time spent of the nurses' shifts medicating patients. (Not to mention the various other huge (legitimate!) types of overhead a hospital has.)
  - ta_donk_gt 10y ago
    > "Tylenol" doesn't charge "$60", the hospital does That is what I stated. And band-aids are roughly the same price per instance. And there are also staff-related line items. And there is a completely separate EMT bill if you are transferred from the scene of an accident. A stay of about 16 hours with no procedures, just a transfer by EMT, a few bandages and Tylenol, with about 30 minutes total of staff interaction was billed at almost $15,000. There are absolutely "legitimate" charges involved, and there is a markup that would be considered legitimate, but there is also a lot of abuse that goes straight to overpaid doctors, overpaid hospital administrators and insurance companies, in the same way prison's are charged 6x or more for miscellaneous items. Legitimate charges would be listed as legitimate line items, not hidden in other marked up line items.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      The problem is not be $15 bottle of Tylenol. It's that itemizing hospital services is a total fiction given the necessity of hospitals subsidizing those who cannot pay by overcharging those who can pay.
- phonon 10y ago

bluejekyll 10y ago

What should the markup be? What you say sounds very high indeed, but there is a certain markup that will be required. Why? Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store (I'm making some assumptions here) each bag of Cheetos needs to be individually inspected to make sure that nothing is being smuggled into the prison. This would go for every item being sold into the prison. It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was competition in selling into prisons, but my guess is you'd end up with some kind of split duopoly at best where things would be about the same as they are now. The reason is that no one can just establish a new business, which is the most important thing for creating competition.

ryanlol 10y ago
>Operating a commissary in a prison is more complex than a local convenience store Why so? Here they just got a few pallets of normal grocery store stuff and mostly used inmate labor to run it. Really simple and costs essentially nothing to operate, especially since they don't have to be open every day. The only complexity comes from potentially transporting the inmates to the commissary, but that's not a particularly efficient way to do it when you can just give inmates paper "menus" where they can just fill in their orders and have them brought to their cell blocks.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  The reason (the only reasonable one o can come up with) is the added cost of inspection before selling them. I don't disagree that the mark up mentioned in the post was extreme, but I don't have a good idea of what it would be otherwise. Based on my having visited places with high tariffs, or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon.
  - marcusgarvey 10y ago
    > the added cost of inspection before selling them. I wouldn't expect the supplier to bear this cost; it's the jailers who are doing the inspecting.

DefaultUserHN 10y ago

That is sad. Companies should not be able to profit off of people like this. This is why we need someone like Hillary. She should be able to put an end these corrupt government programs.