Mass incarceration does not just punish the person behind bars. It reaches through the walls and into the bank accounts of their families — mothers paying for phone calls, partners driving hours for a 30-minute visit, children going without because commissary prices consume what little money there is to spare. The total cost of that financial extraction, according to the latest analysis from the Prison Policy Initiative, is $27.7 billion per year.
That is not a government budget figure. That is the amount American families spend out of their own pockets to maintain contact with and provide basic necessities to incarcerated loved ones. It is a shadow tax levied on the people least able to pay it, and it subsidizes an industry that has turned human caging into a revenue stream.
The Phone Call Shakedown
The FCC has made progress in capping prison and jail phone rates, but “progress” is relative. Families still pay rates that would be unthinkable in any other context. A 15-minute call from a state prison can cost $3 to $5 after fees, and in some county jails that have not yet complied with federal caps, the price climbs higher. For families making daily calls — and daily calls are what keep relationships and reentry plans intact — the monthly bill can exceed $100.
Video visitation, marketed as a modern convenience, has in many facilities replaced in-person visits entirely. The companies providing these services charge between $0.25 and $1.00 per minute, meaning a 30-minute video call can cost $30. That is not a communication tool. That is a toll booth between a parent and a child.
Commissary: The 300% Markup
Inside every jail and prison in America, there is a store where incarcerated people can buy food, hygiene products, and other basics — at prices that would make an airport gift shop blush. Commissary markups of 200 to 300 percent over retail are standard. A pack of ramen that costs $0.25 at a grocery store sells for $1.00 or more behind bars. Deodorant, toothpaste, and soap — items the facility is often legally required to provide for free but frequently does not — carry similar premiums.
The money funding these purchases comes almost entirely from families. The average incarcerated person receives between $150 and $300 per month from outside sources, and the bulk of that goes straight to commissary. But even getting money into an account costs money: transfer fees run $5 to $10 per transaction through monopoly providers like JPay and GTL, which have locked up exclusive contracts at facilities nationwide.
The Visit Tax
If you want to visit someone in jail or prison, be prepared to pay for the privilege in time and money. The average family member travels more than 100 miles round-trip for a visit, according to multiple surveys. Gas, meals, sometimes a hotel room — for families visiting weekly, the annual cost can exceed $5,000 in travel alone. Lost wages compound the burden: most visits happen during business hours, and employers are rarely sympathetic.
Some families have simply stopped visiting. The cost is too high, the distance too far, the humiliation of the intake process too much. This is not an accident. Facilities are increasingly located in remote areas — far from the urban centers where most incarcerated people’s families actually live. The geographic isolation is a feature, not a bug, and families pay the price for it.
Books, Packages, and the Approved Vendor Racket
Want to send a book to someone in prison? In a growing number of states, you cannot simply mail one. Instead, you must order through an approved vendor — often a single company with an exclusive contract — at a significant markup. Care packages follow the same model: pre-approved items at inflated prices, ordered through a portal that takes a cut of every transaction.
The justification is always security. The reality is always revenue. Every point of contact between an incarcerated person and the outside world has been monetized, and the families on the other end of the transaction have no bargaining power and no alternatives.
Note: Facility mail policies vary. Some facilities — including many federal prisons — accept books shipped directly from publishers. Amazon ships books as a publisher/distributor and may offer a significantly lower-cost alternative to approved vendors where permitted. Always verify your facility’s current mail policy before ordering. Browse books on Amazon →
Who Profits
The $27.7 billion does not vanish. It flows to telecom companies, commissary vendors, money transfer services, and the correctional facilities themselves, many of which receive commissions — known as “site commissions” — on phone and commissary revenue. Some county jails generate millions of dollars per year in site commissions, creating a perverse incentive to keep communication costs high and pretrial populations large.
This is the hidden economy of incarceration: a system that extracts wealth from poor families, transfers it to private companies, and kicks back a percentage to the institutions doing the incarcerating. It is regressive taxation in its purest form, and it falls hardest on Black and Latino communities, which are disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration at every level.
The Bottom Line
Twenty-seven point seven billion dollars a year. That is the cost of keeping the American jail and prison system running — not the government’s cost, but the cost borne by the families who did nothing wrong except love someone who is locked up. Until policymakers treat these extraction mechanisms as the civil rights issue they are, the incarceration industry will keep sending the bill to the people who can least afford to pay it.
