Prison Monopoly
My name is Nolan Jackson, and I’ve been in prison for 13 years. I am an inmate of the Illinois Department of Corrections and I’m tired of paying, which means my family is paying, extremely high outrageous prices for items that would normally be much cheaper outside of prison. We must pay $300 for a 13 inch television that’s maybe worth $50. In order to visit us, our families are forced to pay a small fortune and travel far away to the small towns where these prisons are located. The vending machines in the visiting room charges $5.00 for a small order of fries while that same order of fries costs the officers only $l.00 at their officers commissary. We pay $100 to these local businesses to repair, a broken button on our televisions. They are allowed to overcharge us, and we have no other options, other than buying another new $300 television. Pak Central tries to charge us $75 for a tape that’s worth $3, and these are archaic cassette tapes.
These are just a few examples in which IDOC is exploiting us and allowing small town local businesses to monopolize their profits at the expense of our families . We are sent to prisons in these small towns and we ultimately help their communities benefit by generating millions of dollars while the communities and families from which we come suffer from being overcharged, and are not receiving any of those profits. Yes, we are serving time for crimes that we may have committed, but that doesn’t give these institutions the right exploit us and our families . The punishment for our crimes are the sentences we are serving, and the sentences we are serving were handed out to us by judges . When we get to these institutions, we receive another form of punishment which was not handed out by our judges, but additionally handed out by these prisons that exploit us and our families. The businesses in these towns are able to set their own prices, which are well over market value prices, but because there are no other companies to compete against, therefore a monopoly was formed . So to my family, and every other family that is being exploited by these prisons, I’m sorry that we put you all in this predicament, by committing crimes and being sentenced to these prisons. To be continued….
Next: Time on Prison Exploitations, Checks & Unbalances within the Prison System.
Nolan Jackson #R58219
2600 N. Brinton Ave.
Dixon, IL 61021
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