Where Georgia’s prison dinero para comida really goes
El “presupuesto de comida” del estado es una cifra pequeña y honesta. La verdadera economía en torno a la alimentación de los prisioneros de Georgia funciona a través de otros cuatro canales, la mayoría basados en trabajo carcelario no remunerado y en márgenes que el estado se niega a revelar.
…per meal. Georgia’s appropriated “Operaciones de Alimentos y Granjas” line is about $31 millones al año — roughly $0.54 por comida, about 15% of the American Correctional Association’s ~$3.66 recommendation, and down ~60% in real terms since 2015. That’s the part the state shows you. Fuente: Informes Presupuestarios del Gobernador de Georgia / Asignaciones de Open Georgia; punto de referencia de costo de comida de la ACA.
Lo que esa cifra oculta
Detrás de la línea de $31M para comida se encuentran cuatro flujos mucho mayores de dinero y trabajo. Tres de los cuatro funcionan con trabajadores encarcelados que reciben poco o nada, y el más rentable es operado por el propio estado.
Los alimentos que el estado cultiva — con trabajo no remunerado
$325.7Mdel GDC al GCI, FY18–25 (Open Georgia)Georgia Correctional Industries (GCI) is a state-owned, self-funded corporation — total revenue about $83M/año (state ACFR) — that grows, cans, and processes much of the food served inside, across five food-processing units and six farms. Georgia pays its incarcerated industries workers $0 — unusual even among prison-labor states.
Roughly la mitad of GCI’s sales to GDC are food (an estimate — the state reports GCI as a single undifferentiated line and is exempt from breaking it out). And GCI is a fuente “preferred source” obligatoria y sin licitación: state agencies are required by law to buy from it.
Sources: Open Georgia state payments; Georgia ACFR (GCI internal-service fund); GCI fact sheet; ACLU Trabajo Cautivo (2022); O.C.G.A. § 42-10 / DOAS Tier-Three mandatory sources.
El monopolio de los paquetes familiares
$14.5MGDC→Aramark, FY2025 — aumento de ~5× desde el FY22Georgia ended the practice of letting families mail food and clothing to their incarcerated loved ones and funneled them to a único proveedor aprobado — Access Securepak, then Union Supply (a vendor Aramark bought in 2022). Families may now send one food package por trimestre (capped at 15 lbs or $100) and one clothing/property package por mes — at captive-market prices.
The salto de ~5× hasta $14.5M in GDC’s payments to Aramark since 2022 tracks this program — GDC buys the goods in bulk, and they’re packaged by incarcerated women at Lee Arrendale State Prison. The cost is in the structure: families are locked to a single vendor and buy basics una unidad a la vez at marked-up prices — a single T-shirt for $4.55–$9.25, socks $1.35 a pair — plus shipping and sales tax, on goods they were once allowed to mail in for free.
Sources: GDC vendor-transition notice (Union Supply replaced Access Securepak 1/1/2017); GDC SOP 206.01; GCI fact sheet (Lee Arrendale fulfillment); Open Georgia; archived Georgia Union Supply package catalog. Nota: el estado de pago del trabajo de empaque en Arrendale es disputado (GCI cita un “salario prevaleciente” federal PIE; datos de defensores muestran $0) y la comisión exacta del GDC no es pública.
El comisariato — donde el estado es el especulador
~$47Mextraído de las familias, 2024The in-prison store is financiado por los presos — the state contract with the vendor (Georgia Commissary Suppliers / Stewart’s) has a face value of $1.00. The money is the markup: el propio GDC fija precios un 54–323% por encima del mayorista — 132% on candy, up to 833% en un gorro de ducha — generating about $19.8M/año in markup (a ~73% gross margin), and remits 30.5% de las ventas de la tienda to its Central Office.
El GDC es quien sube los precios de lo básico — for people it pays nothing — and keeping the difference. Lee nuestra investigación sobre el comisariato →
Fuentes: contrato estatal del comisariato del GDC (vigente desde el 11/01/25) — términos de COMPENSACIÓN; SOP 407.02 del GDC (remesa del 30.5%); análisis de GPS del archivo de precios del comisariato del GDC con 519 artículos (año fiscal 2024).
The kitchens — already privatized at six prisons
~$7Ma year — the Aramark food-service contract, per renewalGeorgia’s annual reports claim its prison kitchens are run in-house by GCI with no outside food vendor. Its own payments say otherwise. The executed food-service contract — obtained by open-records request — has Aramark running kitchens at six facilities (Hays, Phillips, Valdosta, Coastal, and Arrendale state prisons, plus Metro Reentry), renewed repeatedly since December 2021 — most recently documented at its ninth renewal — without a competitive re-bid, and worth about $7.0 million a year at current rates.
Inside the contract: a per-inmate, per-day rate that has climbed $3.108 → $3.963 (about $1.32 a meal, all-in); an amendment that cut fruit and vegetables “to yield savings”; and a sliding scale written for the contractor — when the prison population falls, the per-prisoner rate rises — so Aramark’s revenue is insulated from Georgia’s shrinking headcount. The risk sits with the taxpayer.
Meanwhile the FY2025 budget quietly lists “privatizing food services at four facilities,” amid a correctional-officer vacancy rate of 47–55% — the state is paying a contractor to run kitchens it can no longer staff, then reporting the kitchens as in-house.
Sources: executed Aramark Correctional Services food-service contract + amendments, via GDC GovQA ORR R030073-070126 (rates, sliding scale, Amendment 4 produce cut, facility list); Open Georgia vendor payments; GDC Annual Fiscal Reports (staffing); FY2025 Governor’s Budget Report.
El mismo sistema, en todos nuestros datos
Cada cifra a continuación proviene de las propias bases de datos y pruebas de GPS — haz clic para ver los datos subyacentes.
Los números que no podemos ver — y por qué
Three of the most important figures here are no revelado intencionalmente, and the Department fee-loads open-records requests that would pry them loose:
- la cuota de alimentos de GCI — reported as one lump “Sales and Services” line; the state is formally exempt from breaking it out. Our ~half is an estimate.
- la comisión del paquete familiar — what GDC earns from the Union Supply program isn’t in any public contract (it runs through a prison-labor program, not a competitive bid).
- la remuneración por el trabajo de preparación de paquetes at Lee Arrendale — disputed between a federal “prevailing wage” claim and $0.
- Lo que realmente contiene la comida — GPS has open-records requests in flight for GCI’s product and ingredient sheets and for the statewide Master Menu. The Department’s first response was a fee estimate, not the records.
We publish the verified figures and label the estimates as estimates. Cómo verificamos →
Este es tu dinero de impuestos — y el de tu familia.
Georgia alimenta a las personas a 54 centavos por comida mientras aumenta el precio de los alimentos y bienes que sus familias se ven obligadas a comprar. Díselo a las personas que pueden cambiarlo.
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