A small part of the obscene profits T-Netix (alias SecurUS) and its partner, the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment gouge from prisoners and their families for phone calls is paid back to a fund to benefit prisoners. It's called the Inmate General Welfare Fund or "IGWF." The phone racket contributes only a tiny fraction of the millions of dollars it collects from prisoners' families. In addition to the trifling refund from the telephone racket, the IGWF gets part of the profits from the operation of the prisoners' commissary. Most of the profits go to the Department of Imprisonment as a kickback from commissary contractor, The Keefe Group 301 Mill Road Edison, NJ 08837 a division of Centric Group, LLC, apparently a conglomerate from Missouri with a long history of exploiting prisoners. Other money goes into the IGWF including the profits from the photocopying fees paid by prisoners to reproduce their legal and other papers. All the money in the Welfare Fund comes from prisoners and their families. None of it is tax money. Once a year a little of the prisoners' money is refunded to them in the form of a "holiday package." Each package worth about $2 in junk/snack foods. The little packages are "given" to each prisoner at Christmas time. Christianity is the prisons' official dogma. Believe it or not some functionary of the Department of Imprisonment buys the holiday packages from the same bandits who contract the prisoners' commissary, Keefe! Obviously there's an intimately unsavory financial relationship between the prison bosses and Keefe. The most recent holiday package was thrown together from what appeared to be long out-of-date leftovers. Our cofounder complained about the misuse of the IGWF: "Much of the junk/snack food bought by the Inmate General Welfare Fund from Keefe and distributed as part of the 'holiday package' was long out-of-date, the Rice Crispy squares more than a year, nut candy five months, nutra-bar 3 months and so on. A large part of the money used to buy this out-of-date food and to benefit Keefe came from me and my family from the thousands of dollars gouged from us in phone fees and commissary profits. "The fiduciary of the IGWF is malfeasant to allow the money to be used in this way and to allow the IGWF to be cheated. Why are we buying garbage from Keefe when the out-of-date foods are good for nothing except hog swill? Keefe should be required to refund the cost of the packages and they should not be used in future [as suppliers] for holiday packages. The empirical evidence of Keefe's commissary contract should have alerted a prudent buyer that the firm is untrustworthy." As usual, the Imprisonment Department admitted that everything it did was perfectly right, good and damn near divine. Joseph Dorzinsky, the business manager at the Mahanoy state prison, answered the grievance by explaining how Keefe had done nothing wrong. After all, the prisons and Keefe are bosom buddies. Both make large profits from prisoners. Neither of them could do anything wrong. What we need is a Jack Abramoff to snitch out some of the corruption in the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment. A lot of those guys are on the wrong side of the bars. Rebecca's Bargain Antiques Collectible Vintage Photos Fine Prints - Old Maps Sheet Music - Old Books Elegant Antiques and Collectibles "He told me he was a gynecologist" Louise Lasser in Take the Money and Run, 1969 You are welcome to use or republish any of our material. Please give www.prisoners.com credit as the source. Return to the Glimpse of Prison Life Menu Return to the Frackville Prison Grievances Menu Return to the Main Menu Go to our site's Search Engine Send us Your Comments or Input.