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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

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.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    > or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon. But surely they aren't charging 2x-3x more because they need to make profit, but because it's justifiable for them to charge 2x-3x more (mostly due to lack of competition). However, profiting from prisoners by exploiting artificially restricted competition seems rather unethical to me.
Spooky23 10y ago
Explain the ursurious telephone rates under your "complexity" theory! Contractors aren't responsible for security -- that's a threat to their margins and to the corrections Union. The reality is that prisoners are just seen as a mark. Inflated goods bring more money into the prison, because inmates don't make enough to buy $8 Cheetos. So relatives wire money in through some scammy system. Often the prisons get commissions for these types of sales as well. I'm not a bleeding heart for prisoner luxury. But I hate seeing people getting ripped off by profiteers.
sixothree 10y ago
> What should the markup be? Allow competition and let the free market decide.
- conanbatt 10y ago
  Free market in prison products sounds like an oxymoron
lostlogin 10y ago
As someone who used to x-ray bags of chips I see which had prizes in them - you can screen stuff pretty damn fast for very low cost. You can just image the whole box the stuff is shipped in. However this assumes the contraband has a higher density than chips. I'll bet the markup was to cover the cost that was charged to have the shop in the first place. I'll bet that the prison shop has a very high rent/lease.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
It depends on the goods. Snickers and Chips really Are luxury items, even on the outside. But if you sold those at the same prices, you'd get in trouble for price gouging. More, maybe 5-10% extra. Security costs are part of running a prison, and should be looked at as such. I'd even argue that having some of this stuff occasionally helps keep morale better. But hygiene items? Tampons or pads, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and other such things shouldn't cost any more than they do on the outside. I'd argue that these things, at a basic level should be free and one can pay for higher quality items unless medically necessary. As far as we understand, being clean helps folks stay healthy.

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.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  > or a difficult place to deliver things (top of a mountain) you definitely see large markups. Not 6x, but 2x-3x isn't uncommon. But surely they aren't charging 2x-3x more because they need to make profit, but because it's justifiable for them to charge 2x-3x more (mostly due to lack of competition). However, profiting from prisoners by exploiting artificially restricted competition seems rather unethical to me.

Spooky23 10y ago

Explain the ursurious telephone rates under your "complexity" theory! Contractors aren't responsible for security -- that's a threat to their margins and to the corrections Union. The reality is that prisoners are just seen as a mark. Inflated goods bring more money into the prison, because inmates don't make enough to buy $8 Cheetos. So relatives wire money in through some scammy system. Often the prisons get commissions for these types of sales as well. I'm not a bleeding heart for prisoner luxury. But I hate seeing people getting ripped off by profiteers.

sixothree 10y ago

> What should the markup be? Allow competition and let the free market decide.

conanbatt 10y ago
Free market in prison products sounds like an oxymoron

lostlogin 10y ago

As someone who used to x-ray bags of chips I see which had prizes in them - you can screen stuff pretty damn fast for very low cost. You can just image the whole box the stuff is shipped in. However this assumes the contraband has a higher density than chips. I'll bet the markup was to cover the cost that was charged to have the shop in the first place. I'll bet that the prison shop has a very high rent/lease.

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

It depends on the goods. Snickers and Chips really Are luxury items, even on the outside. But if you sold those at the same prices, you'd get in trouble for price gouging. More, maybe 5-10% extra. Security costs are part of running a prison, and should be looked at as such. I'd even argue that having some of this stuff occasionally helps keep morale better. But hygiene items? Tampons or pads, shampoo, soap, toothpaste, and other such things shouldn't cost any more than they do on the outside. I'd argue that these things, at a basic level should be free and one can pay for higher quality items unless medically necessary. As far as we understand, being clean helps folks stay healthy.