Wouldja Look at That? Keefe Strikes Again!

HI FOLKS!!!
Pardon my palpable excitement, but I just HAD to show you all THIS!

Yes, y'all can see what we're being fleeced for whenever we walk up to our dorm's canteen window, and boy, is it exciting to share this with you!

Let's walk down Grifters Lane together, shall we?

Editors Note

A previous version of the Canteen Price Sheet can be seen on a post from February: A Secret Agreement to Illicitly Tax the People

Toiletries

There are two "shave creams" listed. Only one exists, Magic Shave Cream, which removes your hair in 4-ish minutes. It's steadily creeping up in price, now at $6.21 + tax. This is the only option we have for shaving without trying to get to the barber shop: foil razors are for maintenance of a clean shave, and do so poorly, at that. Unlike my time in county jail back west, we don't get access to razors here at all. So it's Chemical Burn or Nothin'.

A single bar of Irish Spring soap is $2.60. Something in my head tells me a two-pack is a bit less outside.

Health Aids

Sigh. A two-pack of Tylenol or Advil is $1.50.
This is actually on price point and on brand for the products in question. Grift isn't quite the term in play here, but let's think for a minute:

• We residents generally do not make our own money. We must receive it from our loved ones who go through hell getting approved to be on our visitation list just so they can send money.
• Medical here will not prescribe ibuprofen or acetaminophen for people who have chronic issues: will either give them a fistful of it for a $5 sick call, or tells them to 'get it from the dorm officer' ...
• The dorm officer never seems to have ibuprofen or acetaminophen available. This pushes people to buy...
  $1.50 Tylenol or Advil
  or trade with someone who got lucky at a sick call if they really want it that bad.
  If only we could have a 24 count bottle of generic ibuprofen for a couple bucks... It would be far less hassle.

Even the omeprazole is not exorbitant when compared to my last knowledge of free world pricing of the same medicine.

Avoid the foot powder: it's not even medicated. Just corn starch and fragrance.

Candy!

I've not seen anyone with the new Misket candies, but it's meant to replace the old $2.49 pack of Peanut M°Ms.
The Jumbo Flow bar seems to be at a surprisingly stable price lock, probably as the replacement for the now missing ($2.49) Twix.
All of the non-Scott's candies have gone up another 10%.

Cookies/Snacks

Oh geez, this is a clusternut.
Let's tackle the $8.65, 20 oz. bag of cereal.
I might be wearing my WinCo Foods shades, but I don't remember 20 oz. of honeyed toasted oats costing even $4 in 2022. In the year of our Orange, 2026, have prices for bee-food drizzled heat-kissed rings made of oat skyrocketed so badly that the markup on 1.25 lbs of Golden Valley Honey Nut Toasted Oats can be justified at this price?
How about the frosted shredded mini-wheats? I used to buy large bagfuls of these at WinCo for a few bucks. Nearly $9 for 1.25 lbs makes me nauseous!
Worst part is, it's not exactly just me paying these prices:
Each of you are paying these prices when you send your loved ones behind the fences money in order for them to have food.

A single dill pickle in a pouch is now $2.50 or $2.51. I remember them 70¢ ago, sigh.

A bag of delicious garlic bagel chips is now $2.65...

Microwave popcorn! $1.95 for one bag! I remember buying a three-pack at Dollar Tree for $1.25 just four years ago. Extra butter, too!

A thought:

So this bothers me: we're warehoused, doing little but waiting. Couldn't the prison complex actually manufacture some of its own snacks and items, teach people manufacturing skills that also, I dunno... put jobs back onshore in our country, make use of locally sourced materials, etc?

We teach a bunch of people how to make bagels and how to make bagel chips from them, as example. We show them a process that can be followed end to end, makes a nice product, how to quality control it, so that every batch of bagel chips has this beautiful basil-oregano kiss. We teach them to scale their production: maybe basil-oregano is less popular than garlic and cracked peppercorn, which took off like a bottle rocket, but people still like it nonetheless.
Because we made our own products, as opposed to importing them through a vendor who imported through another vendor, we can sell at a far better, far more satisfying price.

But who am I to dream?

Speaking of things ending in ream:

Frozen

... What, it has ice cream sandwiches for $2.36.
You know those tiny ones you get at the grocery store in a box of 8 for like... $4? Yeah, we get A sandwich for $2.36.

Others here are salty about how high the sandwiches are. $7.25 for a 'Jumbo Spicy Chicken Sandwich' that you'd get for $4.50 out of a 'wheel of death' at a rest area off an Interstate and feel like you got shortchanged there? Eugh, wow.

Entrees

Salt-laden segue, how 'bout them $1.41 Maruchan Ramen, folks?
Only one flavor is appropriate for vegetarian me: Hot and Spicy Vegetable.

But hey, I've been rescued by the Ramen Express by Chef Woo soups! 78¢ each, certified vegan according to the stamp on the package (but vegans here can't buy them because of canteen restrictions, make sense of THAT)...
Alas, everyone else is buying all of these first because they're the cheapest choice (reminiscent of 2023 Maruchan pricing), leaving the $1.41 Maruchans for those who didn't get to the window first in a :middlefinger: gesture.

Condiments

$1.25 for 10 mostly empty packets of mayo, and it's not Squeez-Ums brand; it's the same mayo that comes on some of our trays, 4-in-1 Brand.

9¢ for a packet of soy sauce. At least it's quality: Kikkoman. :thumbsup: $1.03 for 2 oz. packets of sugary peanut butter, 60¢ an ounce for jelly, but WHERE DO WE GET BREAD!? ($1.40 bagel, or $1.61 Maria Cookies, in the Cookies/Snacks section, that's where)

8¢ packet of mustard.
15¢ packet of creamer.
10¢ ketchup packet...
I need some fries with that ketchup if I'm spending THAT damned much!

Said Again and Again

I could sit here and continue to pull apart the pricing of everything on this list, pointing out that it is horribly unlikely that anyone outside prison in the USA is paying over $8 for a pound of low quality peanut butter, or is being dragged to the tune of $9.60 for a one pound jar of sugar-water-purple-gelatin -- you know, jelly.
Organic, natural peanut butter? Okay, yeah, $6, $7 for a pound of that, I can see it, and have seen it before.
Small batch, wild-crafted jam? Sure, $8 or $9 for a pound makes sense.

Cucumbers, which grow plentiful as weeds, pickled and packaged should not cost $2.51 a piece and subject to shrinking at the same time -- yes, these pickles now are smaller than they were three years ago, and we justice-impacted many noticed this trend! It's not shrinkflation if the price rises at the same time.

We have, over three years, observed 100%+ price increases on so many items, and the numbers just keep rising. Florida Department of Corrections, instead of combatting this with the knowledge that most inmates in their system do not have jobs that make money, simply raised the Canteen Spending Limit: We can spend $125 a week of someone else's money at the corner store.

I could argue that prison commissary companies like Keefe, Aramark, and Summit are funnels designed to keep the economically disadvantaged in that state of disadvantage as families try to hold themselves together, mothers sending their sons and daughters what they cannot always afford because it hurts in their hearts to hear their babies say, "Mama, the food rotten again. It smell like sewer water. I cain't eat it [sic]."

I can but cry out as another 10% wheal appears on our collective backs as Keefe raises the prices once more, hoping that at some point, the eyes watching this will reach out, staying the hand that flogs us, collectively shouting,
"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! WE HAVE HAD IT. FIX YOUR PRICING OR GET OUT OF OUR PRISONS, YOU PROFITEERING CROOKS!"