A prison weekday begins with morning inspection. 

Each morning during daily inspection, prison counselors make announcements such as any rule changes. But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we have not had daily inspection. Now wardens only come into common areas to make COVID announcements. 

In December, one of the announcements was about the start of the vaccinations. The warden told each dorm that those who signed up would receive a $5 commissary bag with two chilli ramen noodle soups, one iced honey bun, one beef and cheese stick, one package of Little Debbie Nutty Buddy, one Chick-O-Stick candy and one Coke. 

I’ve been in prison for almost 15 years, and I have never heard of getting an incentive bag for anything other than snitching or prison labor. 

In Georgia inmates work for free. But once a month the staff gives out these bags to certain types of prison employees. 

The inmate body went crazy after the warden made this announcement. Groups huddled instantly to talk about the shots as soon as the warden left. 

I knew instantly I would not take it because any pay-to-play scheme can never be good for you. There is always a hidden reason for payments. It’s even worse in prison where prison staff use incentive bags for some form of gain.

My fear stemmed from the fact that the prison was offering money for something I felt I should pay for. That created instant distrust. 

If there are vaccine shortages in the free world, but plenty in prison, what does that suggest about the safety of the vaccines? I wondered if the system wanted to use us inmates as test dummies. 

Nevertheless, I observed that about seven out of ten inmates got the shot in my dorm of 126 men. The prison I’m in holds 1,400 men total. 

Since the vaccines were given out I have not witnessed anyone with symptoms of COVID-19, but I’ve been careful to stay away from them other than my roommate, who also didn’t take the vaccine. 

Meanwhile, the majority of the inmates who took the shots in my dorm have not received their incentive bag for their participation. I estimate that only four out of ten have received them. 

No new COVID list has been distributed about the situation prison-wide, so my findings are based on only what I have personally observed in my dorm. 

X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

• You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
• No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
• No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
• No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
• No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
• Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
• If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
• If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
• Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

A Georgia Prison Offers $5 Incentive Bag in Exchange for Vaccination

by AAA Aaaauthor, Prison Journalism Project
March 23, 2021

<h1>A Georgia Prison Offers $5 Incentive Bag in Exchange for Vaccination</h1> <p class="byline">by AAA Aaaauthor, Prison Journalism Project <br />March 23, 2021</p> <p>A prison weekday begins with morning inspection.&nbsp;</p> <p>Each morning during daily inspection, prison counselors make announcements such as any rule changes. But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we have not had daily inspection. Now wardens only come into common areas to make COVID announcements.&nbsp;</p> <p>In December, one of the announcements was about the start of the vaccinations. The warden told each dorm that those who signed up would receive a $5 commissary bag with two chilli ramen noodle soups, one iced honey bun, one beef and cheese stick, one package of Little Debbie Nutty Buddy, one Chick-O-Stick candy and one Coke.&nbsp;</p> <p>I’ve been in prison for almost 15 years, and I have never heard of getting an incentive bag for anything other than snitching or prison labor.&nbsp;</p> <p>In Georgia inmates work for free. But once a month the staff gives out these bags to certain types of prison employees.&nbsp;</p> <p>The inmate body went crazy after the warden made this announcement. Groups huddled instantly to talk about the shots as soon as the warden left.&nbsp;</p> <p>I knew instantly I would not take it because any pay-to-play scheme can never be good for you. There is always a hidden reason for payments. It’s even worse in prison where prison staff use incentive bags for some form of gain.</p> <p>My fear stemmed from the fact that the prison was offering money for something I felt I should pay for. That created instant distrust.&nbsp;</p> <p>If there are vaccine shortages in the free world, but plenty in prison, what does that suggest about the safety of the vaccines? I wondered if the system wanted to use us inmates as test dummies.&nbsp;</p> <p>Nevertheless, I observed that about seven out of ten inmates got the shot in my dorm of 126 men. The prison I’m in holds 1,400 men total.&nbsp;</p> <p>Since the vaccines were given out I have not witnessed anyone with symptoms of COVID-19, but I’ve been careful to stay away from them other than my roommate, who also didn’t take the vaccine.&nbsp;</p> <p>Meanwhile, the majority of the inmates who took the shots in my dorm have not received their incentive bag for their participation. I estimate that only four out of ten have received them.&nbsp;</p> <p>No new COVID list has been distributed about the situation prison-wide, so my findings are based on only what I have personally observed in my dorm. </p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2021/03/23/a-georgia-prison-offers-5dollars-incentive-bag/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=1061&ga=" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

1