Inmate Commissary Safety Rules

Rationale:
Disputes over commissary and food items are a primary source of inmate conflicts and violence. Gambling, Extortion, Theft, and the failure to repay debts involving these items are constant safety issues in a jail setting. The increase of organized gang activity within detention centers has greatly increased the occurrence of these issues. In the interest of facility security, inmate and officer safety, the following rules will apply to commissary and food items.

Prohibited Activities:
Any transfer of store goods, inmate meal food items, or funds from one inmate to another is prohibited. Examples of this are trading, gambling, selling, gifting and extortion.
Using an inmate account to place orders under a different inmates name is prohibited. Inmates have been known to use another inmate's account to place a store order and thus avoid commissary restrictions, unpaid administrative debt collection, or medical blocks. This is not allowed and may result in an extended loss of privileges and/or loss of privileges for other inmates willfully allowing their accounts to be used for this purpose.
Using the Jail ATM or inmate accounts as a means of paying off gambling debts is prohibited. In addition gambling in the State of Georgia is a criminal offense as outlined below.
Georgia Code 16-12-21.
(a) A person commits the offense of gambling when he:
(1) Makes a bet upon the partial or final result of any game or contest or upon the performance of any participant in such game or contest;
(2) Makes a bet upon the result of any political nomination, appointment, or election or upon the degree of success of any nominee, appointee, or candidate; or
(3) Plays and bets for money or other thing of value at any game played with cards, dice, or balls.
(b) A person who commits the offense of gambling shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

Possession of any commissary distributed food items other than those obtained by that specific inmate via commissary is prohibited. All items purchased are to be eaten or disposed of prior to the next store day. Storing food items from inmate meals is also prohibited. The collection of other inmate’s commissary food items for the making of home-made recipes commonly referred to as “Sweet Rolls,” or any other name is prohibited.
Inmates who have lost their commissary privileges for any reason will be prohibited from having in their possession any non-hygiene or perishable store items. Confiscated perishable goods that have been declared contraband will be disposed of. If an inmate’s personal commissary, food items are confiscated (Property Interest), the inmate shall be entitled to a Due Process hearing.

Penalties:
First violation of this policy will result in loss of commissary privileges for a minimum of 2 weeks.
The second violation will result loss of store privileges for the remainder of an inmate’s current incarceration and possibly other sanctions.
An inmate extorting other inmates is a serious offense and can result in loss of store privileges for the remainder of their incarceration as well as criminal charges.
Inmates on commissary restriction will still be allowed to order hygiene items.

Inmate responsibility:
Each inmate is responsible for their own commissary items once signed for. Inmates are also expected to protect their own pin number and other account information from other inmates. Jail staff is not responsible for loss of items due to careless handling or failure to keep items in an area or manner in which they can be easily stolen or misplaced.

Effective 11/07/2016, JGL