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Another behind the wires price hike!

Keefe's commissary services illicitly tax loved ones on both sides of the concertina wire.

Ahh... canteen prices have just gone up again for us at Blessington, another turn of the screws as Keefe extorts both us here, and you, those who love someone buried behind miles of concertina wire in the state of Florida.
New price hikes for many, many things have sprung up for those of us on the Keefe Private Camps contract.

As so, I spent $10.17 a few weeks ago for 5 simple things:

  • $1.51 for one 355ml (12 fl. oz.) Diet Coke,
  • $2.18 for one 113g (4 oz.) sleeve of (not stale for once, but not salty, either) Saltines,
  • $1.09 for one bar of Next1 Antibacterial Soap,
  • $2.10 for one pepper spray (Hot) Pickle,
  • $3.10 for one ~226g (8 oz.) bag of Instant White Rice,

19¢ sales tax total (soap, Coke).

Our commissary here in the dorm was out of stock on a lot of things that day, but I can only shrug my shoulders and say my piece as we take a ~10% price hike on many, many things.

At that time, we received a couple days' notice that the hikes were coming. So in a reenactment of COVID-19 lockdowns, people bought up all of the toilet pap Maruchan Ramen noodle soups, believing the price will go to $1.50 per soup. Now, in the continued absence of a posted or printed price list, we had to wait until someone bought them after a restock, or another person in another dorm that had them in stock purchased one or two. Not all of them went up, but they went no higher than $1.29 at the window.

Is it still expensive? You bloody betcha.

I'll have to go back to halving the noodle block to stretch those ramen along further, which people here actually find weird (but fun fact, that's one serving, according to the packaging). But, in the absence of dedicated storage to fully seal one away from the ant invasion, that action exposes me to the potential increase of ant life and ant bites.
Oh, I have so many of these now, thanks, Blessington!

Ten bucks, for gas station 'food items' and hygiene.

I am still appalled, and injured financially the longer I stay in this prison system. The saltines I nabbed that day disappeared quickly, eaten with peanut butter or our false 'cheese' slices to replace absent portions of meals and as a snack. The rice is 4-5 servings, mixed in to the pouches of refried beans that I also use for meal replacements when I'm increasingly skunked out of a meal tray. The pickle... is just a pickle, and has no notable caloric impact. :)

Visitor, please insert funds into the slot on the right.

The financial impact is felt by my circle of care, with the point of pressure applied strongest to one person that I am very thankful for. Because of Florida Department of Corrections' asinine ruleset, only a person who has been approved for visitation can add funds to my inmate 'trust fund'. While several of my circle have filled out the form and submitted it, only this one person I mentioned was approved; everyone else has been stonewalled, met with silence on the situation. Not denied -- just not processed.

While this does affect me, it isn't a unique story: this also affects those around me as well. Not everyone in Florida prisons is a Floridian, or even American. Not everyone has family or friends in the United States to help them -- their family might be in an island nation south of us, across the Great Pond, or even dancing along the Pacific's Rim of Fire. Getting FDC to approve their visitation requests from overseas is such a hassle.

Because they cannot get approvals in a timely manner, their loved ones suffer as indigents, unable to acquire hygiene items beyond the twice monthly free soap bar and monthly toothpaste that we get unless someone around them is financially solvent and willing enough to buy a $4 stick of antiperspirant and a $4 tube of toothpaste for them, never mind the nearly $4 dental floss loops!

Unique to Private Prisons:

If you are in a prison where AccessCorru AccessCorrections (also known as the Keefe Commissary Network) holds the inmate trust fund moneys (that is, a private facility like mine), if your people are eventually approved as visitors, only those with a United States billing address can put money into your trust fund.
It is, therefore, a punishment on top of a punishment if your loved ones are not Americans, even if they are approved for visitation.
This is an issue that Securus, surprise of surprises, tackled in 2023 by adding non-USA payment processing (with quite the proud announcement that they've done so). In State-run facilities, Securus, not Keefe, are the payment processor for FDC's body blue, allowing families and friends to put funds in inmate trust accounts from around the world (subject to FDC requirements).

Why am I telling the Internet...?

Because frankly, it's one of the only ways for us behind these fences to spread the news about the prison complex, and its variegated sins against humanity.
We tell you, so that you receive an unpolished, rough cut view of where tax dollars go, where votes go, to what ends one's elected officials will go.
We tell you, because we are so hamstrung by the system from this side of the fence that we cannot act on our behalf, in hopes that those who have shorter paths to justice will run toward the right action.

We tell you because we hope that you care, that you want to dismantle the Build-A-Monster factories, that there is help turning this thing into a force of good.