MCSD Inmate Profit Account - in the Black black

Over the past several months I have wondered about what happens to the profits at the Jail that are generated by inmate purchases of commissary items and phone calls. I had learned that 50% of a phone card price ($20.00) goes into something called the Inmate Profit Account and that account is supposed to fund purchases of goods and services that benefit the inmates (since they are paying for them). I don't yet know what the Jail's take is from the food and other items sold to inmates and detainees.

Several times I started to request information about the Inmate Profit Account, and then other things got in the way. But recently I did request information, and I received a partial answer today.

What I asked for were the monthly reports for the past twelve months showing income and expenditures of the Account and the most recent Annual Report or summary for the fiscal year of the Profit Account. I did modify my request slightly, to minimize the initial workload on the FOIA Officer.

I'm going to have to dig out my green eye-shade, slip on those straps over my shirt sleeves, sharpen my pencils, get some new ribbon for my adding machine and do some serious inspection of this Inmate Profit Account. The fund balance on 11/6/09 was $73,399.70.

Got it? Seventy-three THOUSAND three hundred ninety-nine dollars and 70 cents!

I didn't get a year's worth of information, but I did get a copy of the Disbursements Journal from October 30, 2009 through May 25, 2010.

Certain lines immediately jumped off the page at me. Deposits of $21,935.73 on 11/13/09; of $2,939.43 on 1/20/10; of $9,577.30 on 2/1/10; of $4,973.37 on 3/9/10; of $5,696.23 ("phone") on 5/6/10, and other deposits. First question? Why do they vary so widely?

And then certain expenditures caught my eye: $13,521.00 on 1/29/10 for inmate laptop computers; $759.99 per month (month after month) for inmate law services (LexisNexis); $4,952.60 to USPS for 20 boxes of pre-stamped envelopes on 12/30/09; and then $3,717.60 to USPS on 3/23/10 for "indigent envelopes"; $3,172 to the Chicago Sun-Times for the "inmate newsletter"; $376.86 on 5/17/10 for inmate fund checks.

In six months 50 checks were written.

Stand by for analysis and more questions.