A packet of Ramen in a prison store will cost several dollars. There's zero acceptable justification for this. Making a prisoner pay more for a snack isn't justice.

Also, it's not a snack, because in most states, prisoners are only required to be given two """Meals""" a day. There are very few nutritional or minimum standard requirements for these """meals""" and in many counties, there is a rule that every dollar of the budget for feeding prisoners that is not spent is given directly to the guy who sets the menu and operates the canteen.

Most prison meals in these systems look like that famous picture of a "sandwhich" from the Fyre festival.

You know, the kind of thing that would be used as an example of "Perverse incentive" in a high school economics textbook.