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: Grits for Breakfast

'Buyers behind bars'

You don't think of prisoners as big consumers, but the title of this post is the headline to a Texas Tribune story by Matt Stiles on how Texas inmates spend $95 million per year - mostly on food products, as it turns out, and not particularly healthy ones. See this interactive chart. Here's a tasty excerpt about the business side of TDCJ's commissary:As at any business, the items are sold at a markup, with the profit margin varying, though stamps are sold at wholesale prices. On average, the markup is just under 30 percent, netting the prison system about $30 million in 2009.Prison officials use the revenue from the purchases to keep the sprawling operation running. The profits, they say, fund inmate education and recreation, television equipment and the prison newspaper, The Echo...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on April 08, 2010 (boomark / email).