I have heard that prisoners use cigarettes as their currency in prison. Also some prisons have
shops inside. Prisoners dont have cash, but they have money on balance. Mostly prisoners use shop to either buy food or hygiene products. Btw, did you know, that prisoners earn while doing
prison labour? Extremely low, but still they have got some money. Money gives them variety of opportunities and things to do in prison.
It's true but based on the things they say, at least where I live some Prisoners have more money than the same people who live in society, of course the prisoners who are Older , those who enter through gangs obviously have the Financial support of those who have been under pressure for a long time, those who don't, have to find money however they can , through their family or something, sometimes even working what they earn is taken away by others.
Here in my country, the inmates who have a lot of money and power inside the prisons are wealthy people who were imprisoned. How do they keep money out of prison? They continue to have lawyers from reputable firms who can influence the entire prison management system. They manage to please the prison warden so that he treats the wealthy inmate well, allows the wealthy inmate to gamble inside the prison, and leads his criminal group inside the prison. In exchange, the prison warden gets a good life with his family.
When poor people in my country enter prison, they become employees of the wealthy inmates. So, they don't have money to gamble. At most, if they do have money, they use it to buy cheaper phones to continue communicating with the outside world.