New Jail Commissary Contract Caps Prices

Milwaukee County Jail. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A cap on prices private companies can charge for food and hygiene products in county detention facilities will take effect in March 2024.

Milwaukee County has begun looking for a contractor to run the commissary service in the Milwaukee County Jail and the Community Reintegration Center (CRC). In 2021, the Milwaukee County Board passed a resolution that capped the prices private contractors can charge for commissary items. But the policy would not take effect until the next contract, which will begin in March 2024.

The resolution was sponsored by Sup. Ryan Clancy, who said in 2021, “We cannot continue to look at incarcerated people and their families as a revenue stream.”

The county policy stops private contractors from charging more than the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). And when there is no MSRP, it is capped at 125% of the average retail price in Milwaukee County for an identical or substantially similar product.

While the supervisor considers the price-capping policy a success, he maintains that commissary and food services should be brought in-house and provided by public employees, not by private for-profit companies. “It is clearly better for everybody involved for the commissary to be run by public employees, by county employees, and not by any third party,” Clancy told Urban Milwaukee in an interview Friday.

The commissary is currently provided by Aramark Correctional Services, which also provides the daily meal services in the jail and the CRC. Clancy has also sought to break up what he sees as a monopoly on food within the county’s detention facilities.

If people in custody at the jail or the CRC decide to purchase food from the commissary as opposed to eating the daily meals, Aramark still makes money. This provides no incentive to provide palatable or nutritious food for the free daily meals, Clancy said. The supervisor has suggested Aramark should only be able to bill the county per-consumed meal.

A document created by the county’s procurement division for potential commissary contractors notes that they can expect approximately $1.48 million in sales during a 12-month period between the jail and the CRC.

In 2023, citing the inflationary pressures on food costs, Aramark negotiated an 8% increase to a one-year contract extension with the county. The contract went from $2.7 million to $3 million for the year.

Clancy called Aramark’s control of both meal service and commissary a “glaring oversight.”

“But we should not have corporations running either of those entities,” Clancy said. “The bigger problem is not just the monopoly, it’s the idea that we have private corporations benefiting from incarceration.”

Another service in the jail provided through a for-profit company is phone and video calling. Clancy has pushed to make phone and video calls free. County Executive David Crowley‘s 2024 recommended budget includes funding to more than triple the amount of free phone and video calling at the jail, increasing it from 120 minutes a month to 390.