Georgia’s Prison Commissary Extortion: Convenience Store Rejects Sold at Premium Prices for $47 Million

How convenience store liquidation—and a two-tier markup scheme—turn pain, periods, and protein into profit

“Most of what is sold in the commissary is about to expire. Sodas are always flat or have a funky taste.”

When a mom in Macon loads $50 onto her son’s account, she expects it will cover basics—some soup to fight off hunger between thin meals, soap, a few ibuprofen for the chronic headaches the prison clinic shrugs off. Instead, those $50 buy a half-bag of food and the cheapest hygiene the prison offers. The ramen is triple the price she’d pay at Walmart. The ibuprofen costs as much as name-brand Advil. The soap—no brand you’ve ever heard of—costs more than a 12-pack of Irish Spring at Kroger.

“I’m 67 and on disability. I get $943 a month. I send my son $50 twice a month because if I don’t, he goes without soap and food. That’s $100 I don’t have for my blood pressure medication. But what choice do I have? Let him starve?” —Mother of incarcerated person, Columbus, GA

This is not a broken cash register. This is policy. And the numbers prove it:

The two-tier scam

Georgia’s prison commissary doesn’t just mark up prices—it marks them up twice.

• Tier 1 (Vendor → State): Georgia Commissary Suppliers (Stewart’s Distribution) sells “wholesale” to the state at prices that exceed actual wholesale markets—and in multiple cases even exceed Sam’s Club retail.
• Tier 2 (State → Inmate): The Department of Corrections then marks up again—54% to 323% over the vendor’s already-inflated price.

Across 20 high-volume staples—ramen, water, chips, tuna, peanut butter, soap, toothpaste, tampons, ibuprofen—our investigation shows vendor overcharges typically between 50–465% over true wholesale, followed by state markups that push final prices to 175–1,800% above what major institutions pay.

Compared to fair pricing (true wholesale + a modest 30% margin to cover operations), Georgia is extracting $47 million a year with $18 million in profit from families who have no other place to shop. And when vendor costs actually fall? The state keeps those savings too.

The scale of extraction is staggering: 7+ million ramen packets, 456,922 water bottles, 1,062,560 beef sticks, 642,787 bags of Doritos, 339,721 bags of Lay’s—all sold at markups between 175% and 1,800% above institutional wholesale.

Discounts That Disappeared: When Costs Fell but Prices Rose

Georgia’s exploitation isn’t just about inflated vendor prices—it’s about keeping the discounts for itself.

An internal pricing analysis by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak found 153 commissary items where Georgia Commissary Suppliers (Stewart’s Distribution) lowered its 2025 contract price, but the Department of Corrections either kept inmate prices the same or raised them outright.

Across those items—spanning drink mixes, rice, beans, hygiene products, and even tuna—the state sold 7.6 million units and pocketed an estimated $420,000 in additional profit.

The pattern is unmistakable:

• When the vendor raises costs, families pay more.
• When the vendor lowers costs, families still pay more.

Top examples:

• Rice, Spicy Spanish w/ Cheese: vendor dropped price from $0.60 to $0.56, but GDC raised inmate price from $1.03 to $1.10—netting roughly $68,000 in extra profit on this single product.
• Sweet Café drink mixes (Fruit Punch, Peach, Lemonade, Hot Chocolate): vendor prices dropped by 20¢, but inmate prices rose 37¢—creating over $165,000 in extra profit combined.
• Bumble Bee Tuna (5 oz): vendor price dropped from $1.83 to $1.81; inmate price still rose from $3.17 to $3.20, generating another $17,000 in pure margin.
• Dial Gold Soap (4 oz): vendor price fell three cents; inmate price increased twenty-nine—adding more than $11,000 in profit.

“We expect price increases,” one incarcerated man said, “but inflation is only 3%, our increases are more like 50%.”

These weren’t errors or inflation adjustments—this was a conscious decision to capture vendor discounts as profit rather than pass them to families.

It exposes a pattern of reverse rebates, where savings flow upward to the Department of Corrections instead of downward to the people paying the bills.

In corporate accounting, this would be called price manipulation. Inside Georgia’s prisons, it’s business as usual.

The 153-item “discount reversal” represents just one facet of Georgia’s price manipulation. In Nov. 2025, the state implemented price increases averaging 30% across the entire commissary—raising the annual extraction from $47 million (2024) to an estimated $60+ million, even as many vendor costs remained flat or declined.

“My husband works in the prison kitchen 40 hours a week—unpaid. Then they charge him $5.60 for peanut butter I could buy for $2.18. I’m paying Georgia to exploit my family twice.” —Spouse, Atlanta area

Ramen: seven million packets, one scheme

Ramen is the currency of survival behind bars. Georgia sold more than 7,000,000 packets last year across all flavors. At a true institutional scale, ramen should cost about $0.20 each. Here’s what happens instead:

• True wholesale (institutional volume): $0.20
• Vendor charges the state: $0.40
• State charges the inmate: $0.90

Georgia inflates the price before the commissary even opens—then doubles it again at the window. Families pay $0.90 for soup worth $0.20 in any normal institutional purchase. Under fair pricing (wholesale + 30% = $0.26), they overpay by $0.64 per packet.

Multiply that by seven million. That’s about $4.5 million on ramen alone.

“They keep raising prices, but they don’t raise the dollar limit of what we can spend each week. It used to be that hitting the limit was rare—now the $80 limit only gets you half a bag of food.”

Pain, Periods, Protein

Generic ibuprofen: charging brand prices for generics

• True low cost (Costco bulk, 20–24 tablets equivalent): $0.34
• Fair price (wholesale + 30%): $0.44
• Inmate pays: $4.00

The effective price is ~10× retail for the cheapest, most common pain reliever in America. A person with chronic pain taking 3–4 tablets daily will spend $20–$27 per month for relief that should cost $2–$3.

“They don’t pay us a dime to work, then charge us $4 for 40-cent ibuprofen. If that’s not extortion, I don’t know what is.”

Tampons: the monthly “menstrual tax”

• True low cost (generic, 8-count equivalent): $1.50
• Fair price: $1.95
• Inmate pays: Two options: $3.40 or $4.25

That’s $1.45–$2.30 extra per box, $8.50–$10.63 per month, and an annual $66–$92 “menstrual tax”—for a product medical professionals and many states now treat as a basic healthcare necessity.

Protein staples: peanut butter and tuna

• Peanut butter (16 oz): true low cost ~$1.20/lb institutional (≈ $1.20–$1.60 per jar at scale). Inmate pays $5.60.  This is an item where the contract price went down from 3.25 to $2.60, and the size went down from 18 oz to 16 oz but where the GDC price remained the same at $5.60.
• Tuna (5 oz): Sam’s Club $0.83; fair price $1.08; inmate pays $2.70–$3.20.

These are the foods people buy to not be hungry. Georgia prices them like luxuries.

“First they cut the quantity and quality of the food they serve for our meals, then they charge twice what stores charge for inferior junk food. They think we are the criminals. I’ve never tried to kill anyone, but that’s exactly what they are doing to us.”

Hygiene: dignity for sale

• Bar soap (3–4 oz): true low cost $0.08; fair price $0.10; inmate pays $1.10–$2.25 (up to 1,812% over wholesale).  Here too, the contract price from Stewart’s went up $0.55 while the GDC raised the price for inmates by $1.03.
• Toothbrush: true low cost $0.15; fair price $0.20; inmate pays $1.10.

“My family didn’t expect anything different from these people.”

”I bought eye drops once, they had expired two years before. The store refused to take them back. I’m just glad I checked the expiration date before using them.”

The quality problem: near-expired at premium prices

“Chips are always about to expire when we get them. Sometimes they are expired.”

“They started selling Butterball turkey sticks before Thanksgiving… when we received our items, they had all expired over a month before. They were tough to eat, but no one could afford to throw them away.”

Short-dated goods are cheaper in liquidation markets. Vendors can buy them for a fraction of normal wholesale, then invoice the state near standard pricing—and inmates pay full commissary price. Families are subsidizing both the arbitrage and the markup.

Even more troubling: the 0.15-ounce ‘travel’ toothpaste packets sold for $0.55 appear to be promotional samples that dental offices and hotels receive free from manufacturers—the exact size doesn’t exist in consumer retail markets. How does a prison vendor end up with hotel amenity samples? The answer lies in Stewart Distribution’s other business.

“It would be one thing if the prices we paid were what we would pay in Kroger, but we often pay twice what Kroger charges and the only items we can buy are no-name and nearly expired. This is extortion pricing.”

The Convenience Store Connection: A Built-In Liquidation Pipeline

Stewart Distribution isn’t just Georgia’s prison commissary vendor—it’s one of the state’s largest convenience store suppliers.

Operating from the same Blackshear, Georgia address listed on the prison contract, Stewart Distribution has served convenience stores across Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina since 1922. The company warehouses and distributes over 11,000 products to c-stores throughout the Southeast—the same products that end up in prison commissaries.

This dual role creates a built-in pipeline for near-expired inventory:

How the cycle works:

1. Stewart’s supplies convenience stores with chips, honey buns, candy, ramen, sodas, and thousands of other products
2. When products approach expiration or don’t sell, c-stores pull them from shelves
3. Those products return to Stewart’s warehouse in Blackshear
4. Stewart’s then sells the same inventory to Georgia’s Department of Corrections—often at prices that meet or exceed what the products cost when they were fresh on convenience store shelves
5. Inmates pay premium prices for products that couldn’t sell in the retail market

The honey bun pricing proves the pattern: Georgia pays Stewart’s $0.95 per honey bun—6% below standard wholesale pricing of $1.01. Where do honey buns cost less than wholesale? Liquidation markets. Investigation found short-dated honey buns selling for $0.89 with expiration dates just two months out.

The inmate reports align with this model:

• “Chips are always about to expire when we get them”
• “Sodas are always flat or have a funky taste”
• “Turkey sticks had all expired over a month before… tough to eat”

This isn’t speculation about unknown liquidators buying from distant warehouses. This is Georgia’s prison vendor operating convenience stores’ own salvage channel—pulling products from the shelves they just stocked, then reselling them to a captive prison population that has no choice but to buy.

The business model is elegant in its exploitation:

• Stewart’s profits selling fresh products to c-stores
• Stewart’s profits again when stores return slow-moving or near-expired inventory
• Stewart’s profits a third time selling that same inventory to prisons at inflated “wholesale” prices
• GDC adds its own markup, turning near-expired convenience store rejects into premium-priced commissary items
• Inmates pay retail prices (or higher) for products that were already rejected by paying customers

Georgia’s prison families aren’t just subsidizing a markup—they’re subsidizing the entire convenience store distribution model’s losses.

When a small corner store in Valdosta takes expired turkey sticks off its shelves, those snacks don’t get thrown away. Instead, they go through Stewart’s warehouse and end up at a prison store 100 miles away. There, prisoners have to pay even more for the expired food than the original price when it was fresh.

Georgia could make Stewart’s buy products only from manufacturers or major wholesale distributors at the lowest available prices—and pass those savings directly to families. The state could require clear expiration dates on all products and set quality standards. Georgia could ban the sale of any product less than 60 days from expiration, or require deep discounts on near-expired items with the savings going to inmates, not the state.

When costs go down, prices should go down. When Stewart’s sources products cheaper, families should pay less—not see Georgia pocket the difference.

Instead, the state has spent a decade letting its prison vendor operate a convenience store salvage pipeline—charging families premium prices for products that the free market already rejected.

“They buy it cheap because stores can’t sell it. We pay full price because we can’t say no. That’s not a market—that’s extortion.”

He’s more right than he knows. When Stewart’s pulls near-expired products from convenience store shelves and recycles them into prison commissaries, the vendor’s acquisition cost drops—but inmate prices never do. The ‘discount’ exists, but it flows to Stewart’s and GDC, never to families.

“Wholesale” that costs more than retail

If you run a small convenience store, you’d never pay your distributor more than Sam’s Club. Georgia does!

• Chips (single-serve): Sam’s Club $0.60 each. Georgia’s vendor invoices $0.73. The state charges families $1.35–$1.40.
• Savings if Georgia bought like any business: $127,726/year on Doritos and Lay’s alone.
• Water (16.9 oz): true low cost $0.10; fair price $0.13; inmate pays $0.59. Savings per bottle $0.46 × 456,922 bottles ≈ $210,000.

This isn’t a failure to clip coupons. It’s a failure of procurement—or a preference not to look.

“I work hard every day at my detail and don’t get paid anything. But they expect me and my family to pay 30% more next year for the things I need to survive. I only have two options: buy from these crooks or wither away and die.”

Georgia vs. other states

• Ramen: GA $0.90 (2nd highest nationally), TX $0.35, FL $1.06.
• Profit margin: GA 66%, tied for highest—and that’s on top of inflated vendor prices.
• Reforms 2020–2025:
• Massachusetts: 3% cap + ban on vendor commissions.
• Michigan: 0% markup on hygiene by policy; 14% on food.
• Nevada: 66% → 35% via law and regulation.
• California: 35% cap (bipartisan).
• North Carolina: 20% cap.

Georgia implemented none of these. It didn’t have to invent anything—just copy what works.

What fair looks like (and what it would save)

Fair model: true wholesale + 30% to cover handling, inventory, and security.

• Ramen: $0.20 → $0.26 (current $0.90) → $4.5M savings on 7M packets.
• Water: $0.10 → $0.13 (current $0.59) → $210K on 456,922 bottles.
• Doritos: $0.60 → $0.78 (current $1.35) → $366K on 642,787 bags.
• Lay’s: $0.60 → $0.78 (current $1.40) → $211K on 339,721 bags.
• Beef sticks: $0.35 → $0.46 (current $1.00) → $574K on 1,062,560 units.

That’s $5.8 million on five items alone. System-wide, the excess take is $8–15 million every year—straight from some of the poorest households in Georgia.

“The thing that frustrates me most is that we expect price increases, but this far exceeds the inflation on the street.”

The $89,000 Transparency Wall: Where Does the Money Go?

Georgia extracted $18.76 million in commissary profit in 2024—money taken from families who are already missing a wage earner, already struggling to make ends meet.

Where did that $18.7 million go?

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak asked the Department of Corrections to show how the Inmate Welfare Fund money is spent. The response: retrieving the financial records would require 3-6 months of dedicated staff time at $37.06 per hour—an estimated cost of $88,944 just for retrieval, not including review or redaction.

Think about what that means:

GDC can tell you the exact price of every item sold in every commissary across 53,500 inmates. They track 30.8 million individual transactions. They know precisely how much they paid Stewart’s for each product and how much they charged inmates. But they cannot easily tell the public how they spent $18.7 million collected from inmates’ families without charging nearly $90,000 for the privilege of finding out.

The contrast is deliberate obstruction:

• Request commissary vendor contract? GDC said it could provide those records “immediately.”
• Request pricing data? Produced within weeks.
• Request financial records showing where Inmate Welfare Fund profits go? $89,000 and 3-6 months.

What this reveals: Either Georgia’s Department of Corrections has catastrophically poor financial record-keeping for tens of millions in public funds, or they are deliberately making transparency prohibitively expensive to avoid accountability.

Reformed states provide this information freely. California, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Nevada publish detailed annual reports showing commissary revenues and expenditures. Some post quarterly financial statements online. The information exists—these states just choose to make it public.

Georgia can track every 90-cent ramen sale but claims it cannot track where $18.7 million in profit goes without a six-figure retrieval fee. This isn’t a record-keeping problem. This is a transparency problem.

The families who paid that $18.7 million deserve to know: Is it funding educational programs? Re-entry services? Victim restitution? Or is it subsidizing GDC’s general operations—meaning commissary profits are being used to fund the prison system itself, creating an institutional incentive to maximize extraction from families?

Without transparency, there’s no accountability. Without accountability, there’s no limit to exploitation.

Immediate Relief: What GDC Can Do Today

The Georgia Department of Corrections doesn’t need to wait until June 2026 to provide relief to families. The GDC controls its own markup – the second tier of extraction that happens after paying the vendor.

“They could fix this tomorrow if they wanted to. Every other state that reformed their system did it without waiting for a crisis. Georgia just needs the will to act.”

Right now, today, Commissioner Tyrone Oliver could:

• Reduce institutional markups to 15-30% over vendor costs (instead of current 54-323%)
• Eliminate markups entirely on hygiene and healthcare items (following Michigan’s model)
• Roll back the November 1st price increases that just took effect
• Cap maximum prices on essential items like pain relievers, tampons, and protein staples

This requires no new contract, no legislation, no vendor approval – just administrative action.

If GDC reduced its markup from the current 66% overall profit margin to a reasonable 30% operating margin:

• Families would save approximately $12-15 million annually
• A 90-cent ramen packet would drop to 52 cents
• $4 ibuprofen would drop to $2.50
• $5.60 peanut butter would drop to $3.38

The vendor contract sets what GDC pays Stewart’s. But Commissioner Oliver decides what families pay. He can lower that price today.

What You Can Do

Georgia families and advocates should pursue two parallel tracks: demand immediate relief from GDC leadership now, while organizing for long-term contract reform before the June 30, 2026 deadline.

Track 1: Demand Immediate Price Relief (Now – December 2025)

Contact GDC Leadership Directly

Commissioner Tyrone Oliver controls the institutional markup and can reduce prices immediately without waiting for contract renewal.

Georgia Department of Corrections

• Commissioner Tyrone Oliver: tyrone.oliver@gdc.ga.gov
• Phone: (404) 656-4593
• Mailing address: 300 Patrol Road, Forsyth, GA 31029

Use Impact Justice AI to email Commissioner Oliver and other GDC leadership:

ImpactJustice.AI lets you send professional, personalized messages directly to:

• Commissioner Tyrone Oliver and GDC leadership
• Governor Brian Kemp requesting executive action
• Your state legislators building support for reform
• Media outlets to amplify the story

Choose from voices like Attorney, From the Hood, or Business—then send your letter in minutes. Each message cites verified data from this investigation.

What to demand from Commissioner Oliver:

• Roll back the November 1st price increases that just took effect
• Reduce institutional markups to 30% or less over vendor costs
• Eliminate all markups on hygiene items (soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, tampons)
• Cap prices on healthcare items (pain relievers, first aid) at 15% over retail
• Publish transparent pricing showing vendor cost vs. inmate price for all items

Key message:

“Commissioner Oliver: On November 1st, GDC raised commissary prices by an average of 30%—extracting an additional $13 million annually from Georgia’s poorest families. You don’t need legislative approval or vendor permission to lower these prices. Michigan eliminated hygiene markups through administrative policy. Nevada cut its margin from 66% to 35%. You can do this today through administrative action. My family cannot afford another year of $0.90 ramen and $4 ibuprofen. Reduce your markup to reasonable levels immediately.”

Contact the Governor

Governor Brian Kemp

• Website: gov.georgia.gov/contact-us
• Phone: (404) 656-1776
• Address: 206 Washington St, Suite 203, State Capitol, Atlanta GA 30334

Or write to the GDC and government officials directly.

What to demand:

• Direct Commissioner Oliver to immediately reduce commissary markups
• Suspend the November 1st price increases pending pricing reform
• Order transparency – publish all vendor costs and institutional markups

Track 2: Long-Term Contract Reform (January – June 2026)

The current commissary contract expires June 30, 2026. Even if GDC reduces its markup now, families need permanent protection from both vendor overcharging AND institutional profiteering.

The legislative window opens January 2026 and runs through March 2026. That’s when markup caps, transparency laws, and procurement reforms must pass.

If You’re a Georgia Legislator

• Hold public hearings before the 2026 session on why 153 discounted items were still sold at higher prices.
• Direct the State Auditor and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety to investigate this “discount reversal” scheme.
• Require full, competitive rebidding for the next commissary contract—no automatic renewals.
• Mandate itemized, market-verified pricing pegged to warehouse club and institutional benchmarks (Sam’s, Costco, Sysco, US Foods).
• Adopt statutory caps: 0% markup on hygiene, 10–15% on healthcare, 30–35% on food staples.
• Ban commissions and revenue-sharing between vendors and the state.
• Enforce transparency: public price lists, quarterly profit reports, and annual audits of the Inmate Welfare Fund.

If You’re a Family Member

1. Demand immediate relief from GDC leadership

• Use ImpactJustice.AI to email Commissioner Oliver weekly
• Email Governor Kemp monthly requesting executive action
• Document every response (or non-response) and share with media

2. Document everything.

• Keep every receipt, note expiration dates, and photograph expired or low-quality items
• Email evidence to Georgia Prisoners’ Speak via gps.press

3. Share your story.

• Your testimony gives weight to reform. Include the prison name, product, and price differences you’ve noticed

4. Contact your lawmakers.

• Find your legislators at legis.ga.gov/members/find-my-legislator
• Use Impact Justice AI to send professional messages asking them to:
  • Support markup-cap legislation
  • Investigate how discounts turned into profits
  • Demand transparency from GDC and Stewart’s Distribution

5. Write the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

• Governor Brian Kemp: gov.georgia.gov/contact-us or 206 Washington St, Suite 203, State Capitol, Atlanta GA 30334
• Lt. Governor Burt Jones: ltgov.georgia.gov/contact
• Ask them to support legislative reform and to oppose automatic renewal of the commissary contract

6. Engage 2026 Election Candidates.

Both parties will soon name candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. Write to every campaign and ask:

“Will you commit to capping commissary markups, banning commissions, and auditing the GDC’s Inmate Welfare Fund before the 2026 renewal?”

If You Work Inside the System

Whistleblowers are vital. If you’ve seen expired food, falsified invoices, or pressure to ignore pricing irregularities:

• Report safely to Georgia Prisoners’ Speak, accountability(at)gps.press.
• You may remain anonymous; journalistic privilege protects your identity.
• You can also contact the Georgia Office of the Inspector General (oig.georgia.gov).

The Timeline

• Now – December 2025: Prices just increased 30% on November 1, 2025—making immediate relief urgent. Use Impact Justice AI to email Commissioner Oliver and GDC leadership demanding they reduce markups immediately. Collect stories and evidence. Contact media outlets.
• January – March 2026: Legislative session—the only window for statutory reform before the contract renewal. Email legislators weekly using Impact Justice AI.
• April – June 2026: Legislative follow-up, public hearings, and pressure on GDC regarding contract renewal.
• June 30, 2026: Contract expiration. Without action on both tracks, another multi-year renewal will lock in profiteering until 2031.

Georgia Prisoners’ Speak will publish updates, and contact lists in Impact Justice AI through the 2026 session.

To join the campaign, contribute evidence, or access full investigative data—including the 153-item “discount reversal” list—visit gps.press or ImpactJustice.AI.

Georgia can choose transparency, fairness, and dignity—but only if its people demand it on both tracks: immediate administrative relief AND permanent legislative reform.

A Captive Audience

As Georgia families organize, write letters, and fight for reform, the reality inside its prisons remains unchanged—a marketplace built on captivity.

Incarcerated people cannot shop around. They cannot say no. The Georgia Department of Corrections has created an economy where every necessity has a price, and every choice leads back to the same counter.

For 53,500 men and women locked inside Georgia’s prisons, the commissary isn’t a convenience—it’s survival. It is the only place to buy food when meals are too small to sustain life, soap when the prison-issued bar runs out, pain relief when medical neglect sets in, or a stamp to send a letter home. Every dollar spent behind bars comes from families on the outside—mothers, fathers, spouses, children, often living below the poverty line—who skip their own meals and bills to keep a loved one alive in a system that will not.

And yet, Georgia does not pay these prisoners a single cent for their labor. They clean, cook, sew uniforms, maintain state property, and even staff prison industries—for free. Then the same state turns around and charges them 300, 500, even 1,000 percent markups on food, hygiene, and medicine. It is a circle of exploitation so complete that every act of survival becomes a new source of state revenue.

In 2024, Georgia sold 30.8 million commissary items to its incarcerated population. The state bought them for $28.3 million and sold them for $47 million, extracting $18.76 million in profit. Then, on Nov. 1, 2025, prices rose an average of 30%—meaning current extraction likely exceeds $60 million annually. But even that figure hides the truth. The so-called “vendor cost” of $28.3 million was itself inflated between 50 and 465 percent above legitimate institutional wholesale rates.

The result is a system where families pay luxury prices for necessities that are often expired, damaged, or salvaged from liquidation markets. Prisoners report sodas that arrive flat, chips that crumble into stale dust, and turkey sticks that expired before Thanksgiving. They pay double what they would at Kroger for food that stores have already thrown away.

Georgia operates one of the most exploitative commissary systems in the nation—second-highest ramen prices, tied for highest profit margins, and no transparency about where the money goes. Thirteen other states reformed their commissary systems between 2020 and 2025, capping markups, banning commissions, and posting public audits. Georgia did nothing.

Behind every one of those commissary transactions is a human exchange—a mother’s wire transfer, a grandparent’s social security check, a child’s lost birthday gift—money pulled from people who already have nothing, sent to a system that refuses to provide even the bare minimum.

The contract with Stewart’s Distribution expires June 30, 2026. Georgia can choose reform, transparency, and decency—or it can renew the cycle, condemning another generation of families to pay for survival in a system designed to break them.

The question is: will Georgia’s people demand that choice be made differently?

Editor’s Note

This investigation was produced by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak, with data compiled from official Georgia Department of Corrections contracts, commissary pricing records, and firsthand statements from incarcerated Georgians and their families.

All financial figures and vendor comparisons were independently verified using public wholesale benchmarks, national retail data, and institutional procurement pricing.

The GDC Master Commissary Listing

For supporting documents, data tables, and to share your own story, visit gps.press.

• The Commissary Con: How Georgia Prisons Exploit Inmates and Families
• The Price of Survival: How Georgia Prisons Exploit Families Through High Commissary Prices
• Who’s the Real Criminal? How Georgia Steals money
• How to Request Georgia Prison Financial Records
• Georgia department of corrections food budget for prisoners.