The weekly limit of coffee I can order from the prison commissary is enough for about two days, so for the remaining five I must go find the storeman. Somewhere in the building is an acquaintance who will loan me a $10 jar of coffee in exchange for $15 in commissary goods in five days’ time when store day rolls around again.
The storeman offers three pathways to commissary. Item-for-item loans such as my coffee are available at 50-percent interest, AKA “two for three back.” If I were to pay in digital currency via Cash App or similar, the price drops from $15 to $13. If it’s a direct trade with other commissary items I already have in hand, $12.50.
So if the storeman loans someone two $0.80 Ramen soups today, they pay him three on store day and he clears an $0.80 profit. But with three soups to loan to someone else paying Cash App at 30-percent interest, soon his initial $1.60 investment becomes $3.12.
The surcharge is understood to cover the risk the storeman is taking on to provide this service. Operating as a banker, loan shark and contraband merchant means profits that are easily wiped out any number of ways—confiscated inventory, a debtor’s unexpected transfer to another facility, etc.
The loan is only until next store day, unless a mutual agreement has been reached for a longer period. A late payment incurs a week’s interest, so two for three back becomes two for four back. Defaulting on a debt will result in violence. The storeman won’t inflict the violence personally—he stands to lose too much money if sent to the hole—but there’s always someone who will do it in order to work off debt of their own.
The amount of debt that requires violence often varies based on social considerations. When gang members don’t pay, the storeman steps to the leader and explains the debt and the lateness. Usually the gang leader, to keep the gang’s reputation good, gathers the $20 or so from community funds, pays the store and then handles the debtor in-house. Some small debts of a few dollars are written off, and the debtor will be forever barred from more storeman loans. Lastly there is the touch-up; a swift beating, but painful enough that onlookers will not want to incur the same treatment. You’re either a good customer or a bad example.
As commissary prices reach crisis levels, Filter spoke with Buck*, a storeman currently incarcerated in a medium-security prison in Georgia, to better understand the logistics of the market. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jimmy Iakovos: How does a storeman set up shop?
Buck: New to a prison, I’ll start with a pack of tobacco that today costs $80 digital. That will make five cups of tobacco at $20 each for a $20 gain. Straight trade, that cup of tobacco is 25 soups. So when the pack of tobacco is gone I’ll have 125 soups. People who can’t or do not want to deal with commissary buy my soups at the 30-percent tax rate. So now I have $130 digital.
Let’s say I bought another pack and sold it only for soups. Then used those 125 soups to front on credit, at the 50-percent tax of “two for three back.” And end with 187.5 items—which is going to be 188 soups, because there are no half-soups. Add to that the 188 soups cashed out at 30-percent gain, or $195.52 … and I’ve turned $160 into $329.52 in a weekend.
I’m not going to be getting just soups. Every item [sold] in commissary passes through my hands. But to keep this simple, soups. There is no common denomination of trade less than the Ramen soup. If an item’s commissary price equals one-and-a-half soups, it costs two soups. If the commissary price equals one-and-two-thirds soups, it cost three soups. The exchange is all take and no give.
JI: What are the expenses?
B: That $329.52 is $169.52 after I buy two more packs of tobacco. Or do I reinvest it all on four packs and pocket only the $9.52?
Honestly that $9.52 gets eaten in card fees online as everyone can’t seem to agree on one digital bank. At first it was all GreenDot. Then that got scammed to death and PayPal was the answer. PayPal got sucky and started locking up everyone’s accounts for suspicious activity and violating user agreements. They lost all our business. Everyone diversified and began using all the different digital currency. There have even been days when I’m offered the lesser digital coins. Please let some fool throw a Bitcoin at me for a can of tobacco.
And I gotta eat. So $50-70 goes into my belly each week because I can’t just abandon the store to visit the chow hall. I’m eating items out of my store or spending them buying trays delivered as part of someone else’s hustle. Then there is the phone bill; can’t bank without that.
JI: Do some items have higher or lower value?
B: [Item-for-item exchange tax] is less or more depending on the item. A Honey Bun that sells for $1.50 at commissary is three soups in the dorm store. That exchange is a tad higher than the “two for three back,” but the dime profit of a two-soup Honey Bun isn’t worth the effort.
The credit customers … don’t manage money well. Those people I give a list to, either at the time of transaction or well before they go to commissary, so they repay me with specific items I can then sell out of my store for even better gains. Chips, meats, cakes, sodas, all the things people want to snack on while watching a ball game.
JI: How do you navigate gang politics?
B: Gangs sometimes decide they want to run their own stores. That I have learned is a river current to swim with, not against. I’ll sell out the majority of my stock to the gang for digital money. Then point my customers to that store and relax for a couple of months. Always, within two months the gang store is broke. Their rules don’t allow hunger and they like to party. Soon they eat up all the profits, draw heat for overdoing the violence for small debts, and come by to say: If you want to start a store we won’t compete.
It’s not that the gangs are broke. Just simply that they can’t keep enough items in stock to operate a store.
*Name has been changed to protect source
Image (cropped) via Texas Department of Criminal Justice
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