This place used to sell radios that ran on batteries. However, since some people used the batteries for illegal purposes (lighting smokable items, like K2), the commissary stopped selling them. The problem is, now inmates are stuck with $35 paper weights. The money we spent to buy the radios wasn’t refunded and now we must buy a new type of radio. That’s a lot of money to us!
It was a bit of a senseless act, because there are other ways to light things up without batteries. Guys place wires into the connectors in light sockets or power outlets, then lay the graphite core from a pencil onto the exposed wires. That completes the circuit, and voila, a wick can be lit! Meanwhile, this can cause breakers to flip, causing a power outage that lasts until a staff member resets it.
Note that guys can file a tort claim to recover the money they spent for the radio, but it takes six months to go through the process.
August 2024