By C1 Staff
NEW YORK — An online website billing itself as “New York Inmate Superstore” is offering to send food and other items to the incarcerated.
Sendapackage.com offers New York’s 50,000 inmates hundreds of items for purchase and delivery: soft drinks, cigarettes, canned ravioli, cotton hoodies, and music on cassette tape, the only format that corrections regulations will allow, according to the NY Times.
“We’ve got same-day shipping and a 10 percent discount on first-time orders,” says Zerimar Ramirez, the team’s coordinator.
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision publishes a list of who can send what and how, which is often confusing and difficult for inmate’s relatives. Sendapackage’s founder, Chris Barrett, thought there was a better way.
Barrett’s younger brother was sentenced to 25 to life for a murder in Brooklyn. He attempted to send his brother some deoderant and a package of salami -- both were denied, as they had been made of alcohol, something Barrett was unaware of.
He found the solution, and two years later, the company is doing well. Sendapackage currently serves all of New York’s 58 state prisons. Barrett is hoping to expand into neighboring Pennsylvania and into states like Texas and California.