Each of the Pennsylvania state prisons has a little store or commissary in which prisoners who have the money are permitted to buy a few items. The prison commissary is a company store. The prisoner may not buy from any other source and she or he must pay whatever the commissary decides to charge. In theory, the prison commissary is operated for the benefit of the Inmate General Welfare Fund. The pretext is that the commissary makes only 5% profit and that the profit is used to benefit the prisoners themselves. As with everything involved with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections ("DOC"), it's a lie. For example, recently over a million dollars from the fund was siphoned off so that the DOC could buy into a television scheme for the guards to get college degrees. The money which prisoners spend in the commissary, is either donated to them by their families and loved ones, or it's earned by the prisoner by doing menial labor within the prison. Prisoners are paid 19 cents per hour! The majority of prisoners are paid about 4 hours a day (76 cents), five days a week ($3.80). Some prisoners are paid a little more per hour and/or paid for more than four hours per day. In the calculations which I've used in this article, I took an average of 19 cents pay for 6 hours per day, or an income of $1.14 per day, $4.56 per week, $18.24 per month. Since television cable service costs the inmate about $15 per month, it's obvious that $18.24 will not go very far. Many prisoners receive occasional donations from their families loved ones. In effect, loving families, almost all of whom are from the very most impoverished part of our society, support prisoners. The DOC has a specific strategy to wring as much money as possible out of the impoverished families. In many cases, it's the families' money which is spent in the prison commissaries. Prisoners' families are already greatly overtaxed by the prison system. The telephone system alone is a racket which bleeds families for many millions of dollars each year. It's not just prisoners who are gypped in the prison commissaries, but also the families who generously try to support them. It's one of the state's more insidious schemes; to force poor people to support the prison system. What's sold in a prison commissary is very limited and very expensive. It nets so much money for the prison system that the new prison television system has a "shopping channel" just to get money out of the prisoners. Everything from televisions sets and clothing to tobacco and food is sold in the commissary. The prison system has for a century kept prisoners addicted to tobacco and then used the drug to manipulate the prisoners. At present, tobacco is withdrawn from the addict as part of the punishment meted out in the prison hole. The food fed to prisoners in most of the prisons is VERY bad. At State Correctional Institution at Smithfield, for example, much of the food is simply unedible. On top of that, the culinary manager, Gary Scott, has pinched so many pennies and cut out so many foods that many prisoners simply don't have enough to eat. While guards get a taxpayer feast of prime crab meat, prisoners get oily noodles and red gravy. They have no choice except to try to feed themselves from the commissary Foods, cosmetics and so forth, will be dealt with below. For now, consider a few of the other kinds of items sold in the commissary and the disgraceful way in which prisoners are gypped and cheated. For comparison sake, I've included a comparison to what we ordinary citizens pay "on the street," for similar items so you can see how badly prisoners are overcharged

Essential Goods
Bought From Prison Commissary

Items Description	Cost To Prisoner	Days Prisoner Must Work To Buy	Street Price	Amount Of Overcharge (Precentage)
Sweat Pants Prison Made, VERY Poor Quality	$13.13	11.5 days	$8.88	$4.25 (48%)
Sweat Shirt Prison Made VERY Poor Quality	$13.65	12 days	$7.98	$5.67 (71%)
Tee Shirts (pack of 3) Hanes, Seconds	$8.18	7.2 days	$5.99	$2.19 (37%)
Bath Towel Cannon Made, Seconds	$4.55	4 days	$1.77	$2.78 (157%)
Typing Paper For Preparing Legal Papers and Letters (500 sheets in 8.33 Tablets)	$8.33	7.3 days	$4.97	$3.63 (68%)
Envelopes #11 For Mailing Letters and Legal Papers (500)	$20.00	17.5 days	$6.45	$13.88 (210%)
"Scotch" Tape .5x450 inch roll	$1.06	5.6 hours	79 cents	$.27 (34%)
Light Bulb 40 watt For Writing Lamps	$2.78	2.4 days	$1.49	$1.29 (87%)
Rag Rug Recycled Rags, 24x45 inches, For Covering Cement Cell Floor	$2.22	1.9 days	$1.97	$.43 (24%)

In most of the commissaries that we've learned about, other classes of goods seem to be more reasonably priced. The foods (apparently because they are essential in light of the prison messhall fare) are reasonably priced, all things considered. The commissaries also sell hand/bath soap for about 89 cents a bar and toothpaste for about $2.04 per tube. To give you an overview of what is sold in a prison commissary and at what prices, I've prepared the following chart. In it I've averaged prices for classes of goods.

Items Description	Cost To Prisoner
Beef Jerky per pack/stick	98 cents
Cupcakes per snack cake	40 cents
Cupcakes Little Debbie, per box	$1.05
Potato / Corn Chips per bag	$1.19
Instant Coffee per small bag	$3.11
Cookies per cello package	$1.03
Snack Crackers per box of 8	$1.41
Pretzels per bag	$1.18
Peanutbutter (junk) per jar	$1.73
Instant Soup per cup	41 cents
Sugar per pound	$1.17
"Pop-Tart" imitations, box or 6 no way to heat them	$1.32
candy Bars	36 cents
Hard Candy per small bag	62 cents
Salted Nuts broken pieces, per 2 oz.	56 cents
Cigarettes regular and generic, per pack	$2.53
Cigarette Tobacco bulk package	$4.48
Snuff	$2.12
Tylenol Imitation, 12 package	$1.32
Vitamins per bottle of 100	$2.16
Shampoo	$3.19
Skin Lotion	$2.00
Deodorant	$1.64
Cardboard Box small, prison made	$1.65
Headset for radio/TV	$6.68
Mechanical Pencil	$4.07
Legal Pad	73 cents
Photo Album	$2.08
Shoe Polish	$1.56
Baseball Cap	$3.26

While most of the prison commissaries sell a variety of other, but similar things, this list and these prices will give you an idea of what the commissaries are like and how difficult it is for a prisoner to survive. Just a pair of socks costs her/him $1.20. The sewing kit to repair them costs $1.56. How far can $18.24 a month be expected to go?