FYI Money in a Prisoner-of-War Camp and Modern Prisons An extremely entertaining article on the development of money in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II is R. A. Radford s The Economic...

FYI Money in a Prisoner-of-War Camp and Modern Prisons

An extremely entertaining article on the development of money in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II is R. A. Radford s The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp. * He describes his experience with the economy of a German prisoner-of-war camp where cigarettes had become the primary medium of exchange, with most prices expressed in units of cigarettes.

Cigarettes have also been used as currency in prisons in the United States and other countries in much the same way. Recently, however, with the enactment of a ban on smoking (and therefore the prohibition of the cigarette pack) in federal prisons in the United States, a substitute currency has evolved: pouches of mackerel in prison lingo, macks.

In particular, inmates in modern federal prisons in the United States get credits in their commissary accounts from prison jobs, which pay about 40 cents per hour, and use these credits to buy goods such as food and toiletries from the commissary. Prisoners are not allowed to possess cash, but they have developed a substitute medium of exchange by using their commissary account credits to buy macks, which they then use as currency. That is, they use macks to pay for gambling debts and to buy goods and services from other prisoners, such as haircuts and shoeshines. Macks are a good substitute for the U.S. dollar because they each cost about US$1.