Ranking Member Markey Slams Trump Administration Proposal to Pay Out Private Equity at the Expense of Small Businesses and Incarcerated Individuals

Letter (PDF)

(Washington, June 26) - Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today sent a letter to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director William Marshall III calling on the BOP to explain its controversial proposal to push small businesses out of receiving prison commissary contracts-a proposal that would privatize commissary services and boost profits for big businesses and private equity firms while raising costs for incarcerated people.

In the letter, Ranking Member Markey highlights the negative effect that private equity and big business involvement would have on the services provided to incarcerated people, including reduced funding for welfare programs for incarcerated people, reduced commissary employee salaries, and higher commissary costs for incarcerated individuals and their families. Ranking Member Markey's letter also highlights the positive impact that small businesses have on reducing costs for incarcerated individuals and their families.

In the letter, Ranking Member Markey wrote, "The current system reflects a decentralized procurement structure under which individual facilities establish their own commissary offerings. That decentralized structure is not incidental; it allows smaller businesses to compete, helps prevent excessive market concentration, and creates downward pressure on prices paid by incarcerated people and their families. Any effort to dismantle that system therefore warrants rigorous public scrutiny."

Ranking Member Markey continued, "Researchers and advocacy organizations have documented that commissaries operated by large national conglomerates often impose higher price markups than those operated by institutions or smaller regional vendors. Moreover, where a single contractor controls both cafeteria food services and commissary operations, structural incentives can arise to reduce cafeteria food quality in order to drive incarcerated people toward higher-priced commissary purchases. This concern is not hypothetical. At the state level, Keefe Commissary Network reportedly holds a large multiyear contract with the Florida Department of Corrections that includes commission incentives tied to commissary sales. A procurement structure that increases commissary dependence risks turning a basic inmate welfare function into a profit-maximization scheme."

Ranking Member Markey concluded, "Commissary services are not a peripheral function. For over 150,000 individuals in federal custody, they provide access to basic necessities, supplemental food, hygiene products, and a measure of dignity inside the prison system. Any proposal that could significantly reduce small-business competition, increase costs for incarcerated people and their families, and divert revenue away from commissary operations and inmate welfare programs into private corporate hands demands rigorous public justification, meaningful oversight, and full transparency before the Bureau proceeds further."