Georgia’s Prison Commissary Extortion: Convenience Store Rejects Sold at Premium Prices for $47 Million
Stewart Distribution supplies convenience stores across Georgia with chips, honey buns, and ramen. When products approach expiration, stores pull them from shelves. Where do those products go?
Back to Stewart’s warehouse in Blackshear—then straight to Georgia’s prisons at premium prices.
The result: Inmates pay $0.90 for ramen worth $0.20 wholesale, $4 for ibuprofen that costs $0.40 at Walmart, $5.60 for peanut butter worth $2.18. Prison families—already missing a wage earner—paid $47 million in 2024 for products worth $28 million, with the state pocketing $18.7 million in pure profit.
Then on November 1, 2025, Georgia raised prices another 30%.
Georgia doesn’t pay inmates a single cent for their labor, then charges them 300-1,000% markups on necessities. Commissioner Tyrone Oliver could reduce these prices today through administrative action. He chooses not to.