Poverty In The Michigan Prison System

(Originally written June 2019. Since then Covid and inflation caused the prices that inmates pay for basic hygiene & food to double and in some cases triple, making the monthly $50 limit inmates receive extremely hard to survive on. So basically when you read the prices of items listed in this piece you can double them.)

An Inmates Economic Life Behind Bars

This is what a Michigan Department Of Corrections (MDOC) squeeze play looks like...
It's all about the money. It always is. Prison is no exception. After you've lost it all, physically, mentally, spiritually, stripped bare in every sense of the word, from family to freedom, just when you think there's nothing left to take, they go after the money; yes, even if you don't have any.

Before the gavel has fallen, the calculations are already underway. One of the very first pieces of paperwork you will receive, after sentencing, is a bill.

The moment you're locked up you have an account balance; plus or negative, black or red, blessed or fucked.

In a perfect world you'd start with a balance of $0; an "unlocked" account, where the hard-earned money deposited in your account by friends and family isn't taxed at astronomical rates—but as we all know by now, the world is anything but perfect.

Initially, there are two billable items every inmate worries about after sentencing: restitution and court costs. Both are tabulated by a seemingly unchecked, rather arbitrary, internal system of shady, unverifiable, mathematics. Mysterious numbers and randomly placed commas. These two balances hang heavy in determining the type of prison bid you have in store.

The brain-trust in Lansing somehow decided, decades ago, that $50 is the magic number that an inmate needs per month to meet all of our institutional needs; an immovable number in the face of inflation, with lower wages, and the ever-increasing prices of store items.

If the court has imposed either of these fees upon you, either restitution or court costs, as long as it's only one, anything deposited in your account over your first $50 will be taxed at a rate of 50%.

So if, on the 1st of the month, you get a $100 deposit, you will receive $75 in your account. If on the 2nd you get another $100, you will receive $50.

If the judge has decided you owe BOTH, restitution and court costs, anything over your allotted $50 is taxed at 100%. Making it impossible to get any more than $50 a month.

I know that this might seem like one of those "boo hoo, cry me a river you fucking deviant of an inmate" scenarios. Well, let me explain why that's not exactly a fair response.

So let's break it down. If you were to have both fees imposed—yes even if, as in my case, you were blindsided by outrageous court costs, even though you qualified as indigent and provided a PUBLIC DEFENDER, even if you took a guilty plea so that a trial NEVER took place, and they still slapped you with a $6,000+ fee for court costs, as well as an $8,000+ fee for restitution, you could never get more than $50 a month, until your outstanding debt is brought down to $0.

$14,000 or a MILLION; at a certain point it's all the same when you're living hand to mouth.

If you do the math on the monthly $50 I get, that comes out to a budget of exactly $12.50 a week.

It might not sound so bad, huh? You probably think you could do it...right? And maybe you could. I mean I have—not without cutting every corner I can find—but I think you be surprised at the difficulty you'd face. It sounds easy until you realize what all the $12.50/week has to cover. Toothpaste, deodorant, toothbrush, shampoo, soap, floss, hair products, baby powder, Q-tips, and lotion. And that's just SOME of the hygiene. You didn't think hygiene was provided by the prison did you?

I should tell you there is a "safety net" for indigent inmates who can't afford deodorant and toothpaste. But trust me when I tell you this charity isn't out of a sense of responsibility or some other moral justification. This is strictly crowd control. The fact that we're stacked on top of each other already makes for a hostile environment; add a bunkie who's aroma is a clear violation of the Geneva convention and you have the components for constant chaos; poor hygiene, impending assault, solitary confinement, ambulance ride, medical bills, paperwork in triplicate. It's the paperwork that gets 'em.

Oh, they'll help you, help them, but you should also know, there are going to be some stipulations; if you can prove you're broke and show that you haven't had ANY money deposited into your account for 6 months, you can apply for indigent status; where, if you're approved—a process that takes 6-8 weeks—they’ll front you the money for some basic hygiene (roughly $11/month); all of which will be added as an outstanding balance to be collected from any future deposits from friends or family members. Institutional reimbursement. So, if you ARE indigent, don't plan on using the $20 aunt Martha scrapped together for your birthday to get yourself a honeybun or a bag of chips to celebrate yet another year in paradise.

With that being said, VERY few people actually qualify for indigent status. The guidelines are intentionally too stringent. Not a dollar deposited in your account for six months?

So if, by some financial wizardry, you manage to cover your hygiene with the $12.50, you'd be set right? I mean after all, food is provided.

Not so fast.

In 2013, to slow the fiscal bleeding of their bloated prison budget, the MDOC contracted out the food service responsibilities. Aramark—a private company—out bid the competitors. Said they could do it at the lowest cost for Michigan tax payers and still turn a hefty profit. After all it's not like we could choose to go somewhere else. Not long after Aramark, with their shareholders and profit margins, took over operations, that corners began being cut and fuckery was always on the menu. They were serving cruelly undersized portions of intentionally inedible food, in an attempt to lower the amount of inmates coming going to chow, saving money on their food costs. 

But they must not have known who they were dealing with. There are always stipulations when dealing with the MDOC. Part of Aramark's payment was in correlation with a minimum amount of inmates who showed up everyday for chow.

In the first few years Aramark was fined several million dollars for failing to meet their basic contract requirements. They soon decided it was no longer economically viable to continue the business venture of feeding inmates.

Trinity Food Service immediately stepped in to fill the void. They were given much less restrictions; they got paid regardless of how many inmates showed up to eat. And with this blank check, they were smart enough to buy into a company called Access—who, not-so-coincidentally, is the commissary provider for entire MDOC. This conflict-of-interest/marriage-made-in-hell actually incentivized serving inedible food which would drive up commissary sales by the inmates supplementing the inadequate diet provided by Trinity. Just last year, forced by the exposure of this scandal, as well as the same financial problems that drove Aramark out, Trinity followed suit.

The MDOC took back the reigns. Since then, neither the menu or the serving sizes have changed.

So yeah, TECHNICALLY, food is provided. But if you plan on relying on the free cuisine of the MDOC for your sole source of sustenance, then plan on being hungry for most of your life; I mean genuinely, stomach-grumbling hungry—go to bed hungry, wake up hungry—all you think about is FOOD, hungry.

And if you find yourself willing to use some of that $12.50 budget for food, make sure to choose your commissary items sparingly.

If you've been paying attention it shouldn't surprise you to learn that the food items on the store list aren't exactly priced to compete. There is no competition.

Let's say you planned to spend half your weekly budget—$6.25—on hygiene; that would buy you one Power Up deodorant (the cheapest available) at $2.50, a Cool Wave toothpaste (also the cheapest) at $1.50, a bar of cocoa-butter soap at $.65, a bottle of Suave shampoo at $2.25, and OPPS, you've already exceeded your budget by 67¢. And you didn't even get a toothbrush yet. Keep in mind these are travel size products.

So let's just say, for the sake of argument—and a hatred for math, that a benevolent inmate hooked you up with a free set of bristles.

That leaves you with $5.60 to deal with your incessantly bitchy digestive system for the upcoming week. As every college student and prison inmate knows, the best bang for your buck are Ramen noodles. They'll run you .34¢ a piece. You'll want at least two per day. That comes out to $4.76/week. And maybe a 8 oz tub of cheese for flavor at 1.84, which comes out to $6.60. Still $1 over budget. Since soups are .34¢, you'll have to cut three from your total. Sure, three days of the week you'll be more than a little hungry but you'll survive—plus you'll make it under budget.

Oh, but you forgot to order a bowl or a spoon. Fuck! Those will cost you a few extra bucks. You'll have to take it out of next week's budget. You'll just eat less in the weeks to come. After all, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Now you have your hygiene and food for the week. Sure, you're broke, but you're relatively clean and you even have a couple of soups.

Success! See that wasn't so bad.

Your celebration won't last too long before you to realize that you won't have money to put on the phone so you can talk to your family,

no stamps to write them,

no pens,

no pencils,

no paper,

no tablet,

no coat to supplement the windbreaker they give you while in Michigan's upper peninsula,

no sweat pants,

no boxers,

no extra t-shirts,

no gym shoes to play sports in,

no watch,

no sunglasses

no fan

no TV

no music to put on your tablet,

no nail clippers,

no ChapStick,

no money for a haircut,

no footlocker,

no lock,

no art supplies if you want to draw or paint,

no books,

no magazines,

no coffee,

no coffee cup,

no cup in general,

no salt,

no pepper,

no shower shoes,

no money for mail so you can't attend a correspondence college,

no frivolous snack food that EVERY human being should have access to when they're feeling like shit.

You'll have NO extra money for ANYTHING, but you'll survive.

When I first came to prison I heard about a motion you can file to get your fees suspended for a few years so you can at least buy your appliances and personal property; a TV and some underwear. It cost me four bags of coffee at $3.62 a piece to have it drafted and typed up.

Six weeks later I received a response from my judge. In his opinion, "$50 a month is more than adequate to live comfortably while in prison." I wish he were right.

Now I don't want you to get the wrong idea; we don't just lay down and die under the boot of these financial restrictions; we do find ways survive; much to the dismay of the MDOC.

They don't want us to run stores,

to loan out food at an interest rate,

to run gambling tables,

to make alcohol,

to do tattoos,

to fix or alter electronics,

to make and sell taffy or fudge,

to send money to our homie's unlocked accounts so they can go to store for us.

They don't let us receive the money to take care of ourselves, and they don't want us to hustle it up.

If we get popped engaging in any of these entrepreneurial activities we can be hit with disciplinary tickets resulting in loss of privileges, raised security level, and even solitary confinement.

Still, you gotta do what you gotta do.

It's beautiful to see that the world is beginning to wake up to the injustices of the criminal justice system (irony, anyone?), like the travesty of mass incarceration, the racial disparities in sentencing, and the horrendous effects of longterm solitary confinement. But the problem is systemic; it runs through EVERY aspect of the prison industrial complex, and it's necessary to expose the smaller, less well known, areas of fuckery taking place in here as well.

Sometimes it can be less about the actual mechanisms of oppression, and more about the idiocy, that's so hard to endure. I mean think about it; If they would tax 25%-50% of money over $50/month, it would both allow US to get some of the things we need, as well as provide at least SOME money towards their squeeze play of restitution and court costs. As it stands now, no one I know, who owes BOTH fees, EVER allows more than $50 to be deposited into their account, because 100% of it will be taken. Of course they're hurting inmates, but they’re fucking THEMSELVES over too! This is the enraging stupidity that, those of us paying attention, have to deal with. It’s terrifying to think that these are the same people responsible for our well being.

Still we find ways to subvert the system; we hustle when we can, live off the secure packs our friends and family order us once a quarter, find slick ways to have our families drop money in our friend's unlocked accounts so they can go to store for us (without this little loophole I don't know what I'd do), and we save up for the property we need one month at a time.

As difficult as it is to get used to, I've learned a lot about the difference between what I WANT and what I NEED. Anyone who knows me knows this isn't about pity—it isn't even about money—I’ve turned this place, this struggle, this minimalist lifestyle into a chance to discover my inner strength. Rarely in life do you get the opportunity to find out what you're really made of, what you're capable of withstanding. This isn't about belly aching; it’s about uncovering the hypocrisy and foot-in-the-mouth policies of the system I am currently being ground through.

It's about telling the world what I see... and maybe venting a little bit.

The world needs to know that in prison there is this all pervasive and ever-present feeling of being constantly fucked over, constantly taken advantage of. Even the money. Everything of value is squeezed dry by these heartless corporations who've lobbied their way into a captive market of consumers that would’ve given Rockefeller nocturnal emissions.

Global Tel-Link, our prison phone provider, was recently sued for price gouging inmates and their families, with their outrageous costs. The court ordered them to drop their rates to match standard FCC regulated phone carriers and to eliminate fraudulent fees. Days before the mandated changes were to take place Global Tel-Link filed appeals. Not because they would win but because it would buy them another year of swindling families with impunity.

JL Marcus and Access, the companies we buy our shoes and clothes from, get their merchandise from discounted items the factory has deemed irregular or too damaged for retail sale. They mark up these otherwise unsellable items and push them on us. Our boxers cost $20 a 3/pack, and the stitching is already coming undone. Our shoes are missing rivets, or the soles aren't glued properly so after a few weeks they flop like on overheated Labrador.

JPay, the company that provides the tablet I'm currently using to write this rant, charges us 25 cents an email, tablets that are constantly breaking or malfunctioning, and accessories with planned obsolescence.

Even the vending machines in the visiting room here charge $3.50 for everything from tiny microwavable cheeseburgers to tiny burritos, and $4 photos with your kids.

The MDOC even has its own company called MSI. For the last three years I've been trying to save up for a footlocker that couldn't cost more than $5 to produce yet they marked the price up again this year; it's now up to, $118. That's three months without going to the store for ANYTHING, food or hygiene. (I’m still saving for it by the way.)

These over-priced items are what we starve ourselves for. We save month after month just to be ripped off. Capitalism at its best; America at its worst.

There is something truly evil, truly criminal, in taking such obvious advantage of the helpless and vulnerable... and I'm not talking about us; I'm talking about OUR FAMILIES, who have to single handedly foot the outrageous bill in order to maintain a connection with their loved ones; to buy a price-gouged peace of mind, to know that we're properly clothed and fed while we are away, too often, choose between rent and a relationship with a brother, father, son, sister, mother, daughter.

At some point you just get fed up with the hypocrisy of it all. We know what we did to get in here. And we're actively participating in what society has asked of us to make amends. But to listen to these righteous people preach about justice, while their hands are firmly planted in our back pockets, is becoming more than one man should be asked to endure.

Everywhere you turn you come to see that this place doesn't FOSTER rehabilitation it REJECTS it. They force us into poverty and make all the things we do to survive illegal...they cut off our hands and wonder why we won't stop using our feet!

It's spirit crushing. It's heartbreaking. It's the place I call home.

This was meant to be an outlet for the frustration with our prison debts but snowballed into an outburst about all things monetarily messed up in the system. Sometimes, writing is all I can do to keep from losing my mind. I get a slight sense of relief knowing that some of the bullshit we deal with will be brought to light no matter how dim the illumination proves to be.

So thanks for listening to another ranting tirade of a lowly inmate in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Just another man learning to write with his feet while trying to save for a footlocker....one month at a time.

So, in case you were wondering; this is what an MDOC squeeze play looks like.