Inmates and the Stock Exchange
There was a time when conversations on the tier centered around poker, football stats, or who was brewing the next batch of hooch. These days, you’re just as likely to hear talk of dividend yields, P/E ratios, or whether Nvidia’s rise is sustainable.
Thanks to the proliferation of user-friendly platforms like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Robinhood, it’s easier than ever to open a brokerage account and start investing. That ease has quietly reached even into the prison system. Inmates, like the general public, are becoming more financially literate—self-taught or taught by each other. COVID-19 stimulus checks also dropped unexpected cash into the prison economy, and some of us didn’t blow it on junk food or overpriced movie rentals. We invested.
Investing to Pass the Time
For many of us, investing isn’t just about future money—it’s a lifeline to purpose. You’ll hear inmates trading tips on penny stocks or arguing the fundamentals of blue-chip companies like it’s fantasy football with real-world stakes.
It’s becoming a pastime—no, scratch that—a competitive sport. You’ve got guys running technical analysis on iPhones with cracked screens. Others use graph paper to map out candlestick patterns by hand. There’s mentorship, camaraderie, and sometimes, a little trash talk. You’d be surprised how animated a grown man can get when his ETF jumps five percent.
Barriers Inmates Face to Investing
It’s not all upward mobility and day-trading. Huge barriers remain. Most brokerages require a government-issued ID to open an account—prison IDs don’t count. Many inmates don’t have state IDs, and the process to get one while incarcerated is often unclear or unavailable.
Even if you’ve got ID, some brokerage firms refuse to work with people behind bars. Then there’s prison policy: some states forbid incarcerated people from operating a business, and investing is sometimes interpreted as such. Without a bank account to link for deposits and withdrawals, even the simplest investing is blocked before it starts.
Overcoming Barriers to Investing
Still, we find ways.
Some inmates use third parties—a family member, friend, or trusted advocate—to open and manage accounts on their behalf. This can be as simple as linking the brokerage to an outside checking account and executing trades under the inmate’s instruction.
Others pursue more complex arrangements. With legal guidance, it’s possible to set up irrevocable trusts, custodial accounts, or long-term gifting structures. It’s not easy, and it’s definitely not cheap—but it’s possible. Where there’s a will, there’s a workaround.
Some prison systems, including the Idaho Department of Correction, are beginning to show signs of progress. Inmates with valid IDs may now open their own accounts, learn from financial courses, and invest directly. It’s a small but meaningful step toward autonomy.
Society Benefits When Inmates Invest
It’s easy to dismiss this as a hobby for the bored or privileged. But the reality is—investing teaches discipline, patience, research, and long-term planning. It’s not a distraction. It’s practice for real life.
Every inmate who learns how to build a portfolio is also learning how to think ahead, manage risk, and prepare for a future outside these walls. Financial literacy is an antidote to recidivism. The skills we build here don’t just help us; they ripple outward to our families, our communities, and the systems we return to.
Let us invest in something other than our regrets. Let us put our minds to work.
It might just be the most profitable use of our time yet.