Commissary Victory

In the Illinois Department of Corrections, the prisoner is given nothing.

The prisoner must buy his envelopes to write to his family. He must buy the pen and paper. He must buy all the cosmetics to keep his body clean: body soap, laundry soap, razors, shampoo. 

Nothing is given to the prisoner anymore. He must buy the batteries to run his electronics. He must buy a tablet to get the message systems with his family. He must buy minutes on the phone to talk to his family.

All these things are sold to him from the prisoner commissary, a store run by the Illinois Department of Corrections—and run for a profit.

Do The Math

There is a twenty-five percent mark-up on all things sold to the prisoner. With this profit 40 percent goes to the Inmate Benefit Fund, which buys things like basketballs, training weights, videos played on the movie channel and the satellite dish service that supplies TV viewing to the prisoner. Any leisure time service provided to the prisoner is paid for by the money generated from the prisoner commissary.  

The remaining 60 percent profit then is returned to the Illinois Department of Corrections Budget to offset the cost of incarceration—so the Illinois taxpayer would want to generate as much sales from the commissary as possible. That way their tax dollars sent to the black hole known as the Illinois Department of Corrections IDOC could be used elsewhere—like roads and bridges, and paying teachers’ salaries.

The Prison System is set up to allow the prisoner to shop once a week. 

Limits are in place so that the commissary purchases can be stored in the two small property boxes allowed in the cell. The prisoner has one large box and one small box. The large box measures at 30 inches long by 19 inches wide. It is 10.5 inches deep. It has a sliding lid to cover it. The small box measures 12 inches wide by 17 inches long and 10.5 inches deep. So the prisoners do not have a lot of storage space. All the prisoners’ clothing, except what is dirty, must be stored in the large box. One pair of shoes, shower shoes, tennis shoes or boots is allowed outside of the box. Any other shoes must go in the large box. All cosmetics must fit in the large box except one toothbrush, one toothpaste, one laundry soap bottle, and one bar of soap in a soap dish. You may also have one cup and a bible out.

All your commissary food must also fit in the large property box. Believe me, the guys buy a lot of commissary food because prison food served is so bad. It contains soy in the meat substitutes, which is made in the Illinois Industries sweatshops.  

The prisoner has ten shelves in the cell, but only his TV and fan can be on the shelves. When the prisoner leaves the cell all his property except the items mentioned above must be stored in the property box. 

In the small box the prisoner may store his legal work, books and correspondence material.  

Catch 22

The commissary system was set up to run once a week so the prisoner would not need to buy more products than would fit in the large box. 

But when Covid hit, the IDOC staff decided it was only going to run the store once a month, or even once every five weeks. Where before there was no limit on the amount of commissary items one could buy, they now imposed a 150 dollar limit on everything except art supplies and electronic permit items (TV, tablet, electric razor, radio, fan, hot pot, beard trimmers, etc.).

The rules for storage boxes are extremely harsh in the prisons, yet the prisoner needs to buy enough food and supplies to last a month or five weeks. Then you have the storage problem when you leave the cell. The security staff may come in and take all property out on the shelves for not being in compliance.

The Ongoing Battle

So we went to war to get the commissary at the Illinois River Correctional Center run weekly—and we won that war. It only took a year to get it done.  Director Jeffreys set up a committee and standardized the Medium Security Prison Community, requiring the Illinois River C.C. to run the store weekly.

Now I like this. Why? Because I do not have to buy more than I can fit into my box. For I do not eat the food served in the prisoner kitchen. It contains soy. I suffer from Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis disease. Soy exacerbates the disease and really makes  me sick when I consume it.  

However, in retaliation the staff, not liking the fact the prisoner population made them give us what we have coming by law, the once-a-week shop, they decided to retaliate.

The rules say the prisoner locked in his cell can have his property out wherever he wants. But now they have decided to come around at seven in the morning to do a compliance check—taking anything that is not in the property box at seven in the morning. They are coming into the cell and catching the guys asleep, trying to incite a riot and physical reaction.  

Now I ask my reader to explain to me why the cops have a problem with the prisoner’s property at seven in the morning. What penological interest is served here? What security problem arises at seven in the morning concerning where the prisoner has his property. Why are there ten shelves in the cell, but the prisoner cannot have his property on them when he is in the cell?

Well let me explain this. When Donald Snyder was the IDOC director, he had a problem keeping the segregation prison cells full. Prisoners were not getting tickets, not getting in trouble. So, he had to draft policies to create problems between prisoners and staff. Snyder knew that the little bit of food and property the prisoner had meant the world to him—so what better way to create staff assaults then to take this properly bogusly.

Then they tried to justify the seven AM compliance check with fire concerns. But eight of the ten shelves in the cell are wood, so things are going to burn no matter how much commissary you have. In any event, there is rarely a fire here, none that I know of in the last ten years.  

So we won the small war, but the larger battle with the compliance check rages on. But guys will learn to budget their space and then we beat them at their compliance check retaliation anyway. 

Another bit of retaliation was the removal of 114 items removed from the commissary, all of which could generate sales to bring money into the IDOC budget.  

So there is the latest update on the weekly commissary right being reinstated and the retaliation that followed. Compliance checks and items being removed and not kept in stock for the weekly shops now given. Why? To punish the prisoner for requesting what he had coming by law. A weekly shop to meet the compliance rules put in place by ex-director Snyder.

Your writer in irons,
Larry “Rocky”Harris N-57672