Unlivable Wages

This post is concerning costs of canteen products versus the amount of pay available to people incarcerated in the Missouri DOC, specifically regarding JCCC. It covers equivalent costs if you paid the same percentage of your wages out there for products that we pay in here and hopefully gives a little perspective on how different it is for us to manage our budgets in here.
I work at the Center for Braille and Narration Production (CBNP) and I make $225 a month which translates to $2700 a year. That is one of the highest paying offender jobs in the Missouri DOC. The average Missouri Vocational Enterprises (MVE) pay is $0.60 per hour. That’s right, 60¢ per hour. Some MVE workers make as much as $0.81 per hour. For a 40 hour week that equals out to about $24.00 a week and about $96.00 a month or $32.40 a week and $129.60 a month respectively. MVE workers get docked pay for every 15 minutes they are not in the factory, including for their lunch break. In addition, anyone with a paroleable sentence has 10% of their check put back for mandatory savings. So the average MVE worker makes about $1036.80 or $1399.68 per year that they can spend. Now, these are premium pay jobs. The vast majority of guys in here either don’t have jobs, so only get $8.50 a month, or work for $30-$50 a month depending on what non-premium job they can get, such as kitchen workers, porters, rec workers etc. Everyone has to deal with these jobs first for at least 90 days before they can expect to be eligible for premium pay jobs.
For us to rent a new release movie on our tablets it costs $10.19. I imagine that seems like a reasonable price for a new release. The problem is, based on the maximum amount of money someone can make working a legitimate job $10.19 about 0.4% of our yearly income. Again that doesn’t sound like that much….less than one percent, not much right? Well, if you are making $30k a year that movie would cost you $120.00 if you spent the same percentage of your income on a movie rental. Yeah, suddenly it doesn’t sound so reasonable does it? Would you pay $120 to rent a movie for 2 days?
We know that things cost what they cost. The problem for us is the DOC tries to micromanage what we can spend our money on and when. They have a monopoly on our every expenditure. If we don’t want to pay $57.50 for a pair of shoes they offer an alternative that is only $24.93, but they are inferior quality and fall apart quickly when worn frequently which means they have to be purchased two or three times a year instead of once and end up actually costing more over a period of time. The canteen is required to have a contract for every item it sells, and when the price goes up they can’t move on to try to find another provider until the contract expires. Individually, we can’t shop elsewhere, find a deal, or shop around even at mail order vendors who specialize in providing safe items to prisons. So we go months and months on end unable to buy shoes, and when the contracted supplier gets some stock in, they are a higher price and sold out quickly. Currently there is no contract for quality shoes, because the last provider was unable to keep up with demand.
In the end we don’t want to pay a high price for garbage products any more than anyone does. Yes, we are in prison, but that in itself is the only punishment I was sentenced to. Basic human needs were not on the list of things I was sentenced to do without. We are being charged $1.20 for a foil pack of aspirin with two tablets inside. We are paying a minimum of $1.22 for a bar of soap. Neither of these things is labeled for individual sale by the manufacturer. Yet, we are still forced to pay individual prices for bulk items. Our canteen manager says what was once a $10 carton of aspirin now costs $90. To cover the extra cost, of course they must in turn increase the price. The problem is, either men are trying to be self-sufficient and keep a job so that they can support themselves, or they are being supported financially through gifts and help from their loved ones on the outside. Our jobs just can’t cover the costs of some necessities that the DOC doesn’t cover, and our loved ones shouldn’t be expected to feel obligated to cover the balance.
The DOC has limits on how much money we can have or how much we can make that is based on prices of things from 20+ years ago. Pay at MVE has gone up by 10¢ per hour just one time since I have been locked up (25 years in November). State tip has been the same $7.50 per month or $8.50 per month if you graduated from high school or have a GED or HiSET. These pay caps and limits need to be raised to accommodate the current expenses we face. Because if you only need 2 bars of soap, 1 shampoo, 1 toothpaste, a toothbrush and 1 deodorant per month the least it will cost is $8.49…. Hope you have your GED and prices stay right where they are, otherwise you are gonna come up short.