#PrisonCommissary

The Price of Love: How Georgia’s Prisons Bleed Families Dry

For many families in Georgia, having a loved one behind bars doesn’t mean only missing birthdays and phone calls—it means chronic financial strain. A new national study finds that families who provide direct support to incarcerated relatives spend on average 6 % of their household income each month just to cover direct costs like commissary items, hygiene products and phone calls. 
When that national figure meets the realities inside Georgia’s prison system—sky-high commissary mark‐ups, inadequate meals that force reliance on overpriced snacks—the results are devastating.

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.