A $35 Pack of Cigarettes
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:52 PM

Or, three packs for $105. That was the going rate, apparently, at a Luzerne County (Pennsylvania) prison. The prison guard who allegedly sold the smokes to an inmate will probably be asked to find employment elsewhere. The cigarette deal wasn't just to fuel the inmate's personal consumption, oh no. According to the linked article, it was part of a "moneymaking scheme," in which the inmate intended to sell individual cigarettes to other inmates, in the process "earning a $100 to $120 profit". Pretty specific profit estimates in prison, eh?

Meanwhile, the supplying-drugs-to-inmates scandal at Illinois' Stateville Correctional Center has led to a 70-month jail term for a man who supplied cocaine to a prison guard (Chicago Tribune registration required -- for the article, not the jail term). Vice Squad has tracked the Stateville scandal in our fashion, most recently on November 21.

Labels: cocaine, Illinois, policing, tobacco