Americans have felt the pain of inflation over the past year. According to the most recent release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices were up 7.7% in October compared to the same time in 2021. One frequently overlooked group has particularly struggled under the weight of growing inflation: the incarcerated population.
The New York Times recently published a guest essay by Patrick Irving, a maximum security prisoner in a facility just south of Boise, Idaho, who writes that prices at the commissary, an internal store where inmates can buy a limited range of personal items, in Irving’s facility rose
