We asked people in Chicago to guess how much they’d need to spend on certain items and necessities in prison commissaries in Illinois. ✍️ & 🎥: Lakeidra Chavis & Chris Vazquez / The Marshall Project Transcript: CHRIS VAZQUEZ: What do people have to pay for in prison? LAKEIDRA CHAVIS: We’re quizzing people in Chicago to find out. CHRIS: So, ACLU data shows that the high end of a day’s wages for a prison job here in Illinois is about $1.10. First up is this pack of ramen. LAKEIDRA: How many hours do you think it would take to be able to afford this? INTERVIEWEE 1: I’d say about, like, two. LAKEIDRA: Two hours? You are absolutely right. CHRIS: So for the whole case of ramen, it would be about six days worth of work. INTERVIEWEE 2: Six days?! LAKEIDRA: The food in prisons, they can be moldy, they can be inedible. CHRIS: So this is what a lot of people rely on to kind of supplement those meals. INTERVIEWEE 3: I know a lot of people who’ve been in the prison system, including myself. Well noodles, as an example, are really like your survival kit. CHRIS: Next round: How long do you think you would have to work in order to afford this much aspirin. INTERVIEWEE 2: Ten days. INTERVIEWEE 4: Five days? INTERVIEWEE 5: Maybe four hours. LAKEIDRA: It’s actually about two days. INTERVIEWEE 6: Working just a minimum wage job outside of prison can provide that so much quicker. And even then that’s not enough. INTERVIEWEE 2: You need aspirin, you need it now. Like, you don’t want it two days from now. INTERVIEWEE 3: There’s not a lot of movement going on in prison. So when you go to the store, you need to go to the store that day because you don’t know if you’re going to go to the store maybe three months from now. CHRIS: Poor health care behind bars often means that people get sick or die for stuff that could be very easily treatable. Last round: Let’s say it’s a cold day and you need thermal clothes to keep warm. How long do you think you’d need to work to afford these? INTERVIEWEE 5: Maybe like a week’s work? LAKEIDRA: You’re actually pretty spot on. It is seven days. CHRIS: Freezing temperatures behind bars also often mean that people get sick or worse, and prisons often don’t provide stuff you might consider essential, like thermal clothes, for free. INTERVIEWEE 2: It’s not humane in there at all. INTERVIEWEE 4: Things are a lot more expensive than you would think. INTERVIEWEE 3: The shoe shine jobs, that’s slave labor. Cutting officers’ hair, that’s slave labor. I don’t judge people’s work and how they make a living when they have to, but pay them.