When a mother deposits $50 so her son can buy soap, stamps and something better than the evening meal, that money passes through several hands before it becomes a bar of soap. Almost none of the value that flows through the system ever returns to the person it was meant for.
Who actually pays
Prison wages typically run from a few cents to about a dollar an hour. Across a year that adds up to somewhere between roughly $180 and $900 for people who have a job at all. Average commissary spending, by contrast, has been estimated at around $947 per person per year. The difference is made up by families, who are disproportionately low-income and who are also paying for calls, messages and money-transfer fees.
Who keeps the margin
Commissary, tablets, messaging and money transfer are run by a small number of private vendors under multi-year contracts. Public filings and lender reports put margins for the largest operators in the high-20s to mid-30s percent range on an EBITDA basis.
Facilities often take a second cut. Many contracts pay the jail or prison a site commission, a percentage of sales that has been reported anywhere from about 16% to over 35% on commissary. That money usually lands in an inmate welfare fund, where oversight varies by state.
Who gets nothing
The incarcerated person, and the family paying the bill, receives no share. There is no loyalty program, no rebate and no savings built from years of purchases. When release day comes, many states hand over gate money averaging about $53.
The system is already changing
Federal regulators have banned site commissions on phone and video calls. Several states have made calls free, and some now cap commissary markups: California at 35% through 2028, Massachusetts at 3% over cost. Facilities that lose commission revenue need a better answer to the question of what the contract delivers.
What CRP changes
CRP flips the direction of the flow. A percentage of what is spent comes back to the person, as closed-loop store credit or into a locked savings account paid out at discharge. The value that would have been a commission becomes a reentry outcome an agency can report.
- No commission to the facility from CRP, ever.
- Value credited to the person, protected from garnishment where the law allows.
- A published pass-through audit showing spend in and value returned.
The money is already moving. CRP is about where it ends up.