A report on the problems of contraband cell phones in Ohio prisons: The Ohio Department of Corrections is reviewing how best to cope with a problem that is growing nationwide: Prisoners gaining access to cellphones. “They can be used to plan escapes,” says Vinko Kucinic, the department’s investigations coordinator. “They can be used to intimidate witnesses, as well as victims.” An I-Team review of prison records shows that the department has seized 225 cellphones in […]
Prison Cell Phones
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Officials tasked with controlling the waves of contraband cell phones in prisons are at a disadvantage. Their options include costly new investment in complex jamming technologies, increasing staff, more physical searches, or new processes; all added to an already over burdened work force. In each case, cell phone control will be expensive, and results will be elusive. meshDETECT is a cell phone access and control platform that was developed to satisfy the access control and […]
These searches are necessary because the high contraband value of smuggled prison cell phones has a corrupting influence on guards and staff. With prisoners paying as much as $1000 per contraband cell phone, the temptation to smuggled wireless devices is too much for some prison staff. We beleive part of the solution is to lower the contraband value of the smuggled cell phones by implementing the meshDETECT secure cell phone service solution. Random staff searches […]
The following video is a short news report on the problem of smuggled prison cell phones in New Jersey. The report finds that shows that in the last 4 years, 620 contraband cell phones had been confiscated at one prison in New Jersey called Northern State. That’s more than double the number (295) found in New Jersey’s 12 other prisons combined. A former Northern State inmate says smuggled cell phones are easy to get on […]
This article shows what a business operation the smuggling of cell phones into prison has become. Contraband cell phones have become as desired as drugs in prisons and jails. The contraband value of these smuggled cell phones can be reduced by providing an alternative, prison sanctioned, secure cell phone service. Update (8/9/12): Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa announced that a former correction officer at Northern State Prison in Newark was sentenced to prison today for […]
At $1000 per smuggled cell phone, more laws aren’t going to stop the contraband cell phones from being smuggled into jails. Only reducing the value of the contraband cell phone will reduce the efforts to sneak them in for prisoners. meshDETECT provides a secure prison cell phone service that manages and controls the use of cell phones in prison. Put criminals in prison, and we’re all safer, right? Not so fast. Here’s the problem. Cell […]
This editorial makes the case that smuggling contraband prison cell phones should be illegal in California. And of course, that is correct. But laws making cell phone smuggling illegal don’t address the demand factors that cause contraband prison cell phones to be so valuable. Providing a controlled and secure prison cell phone service for legitimate prisoner use, much like current prison payphone service works, will go along way to reducing the contraband value of smuggled […]
This article demonstrates that illegal prison cell phones are a problem around the world, with most prison authorities turning to cell phone jammers to block the signals of contraband prison cell phones smuggled into penal institutions. The authorities at Peshawar, Pakistan central jail will soon install jammers to sever cellphone link of hardened criminals and militants with their accomplices outside the facility. “Criminals stay in touch with their accomplices from inside the prisons and issue […]
Of course we know that making it illegal will not stop the demand and therefore not stop contraband cell phones from being smuggled into prisons. Only addressing the demand for prison cell phones by providing a secure prison cell phone service will reduce the contraband value of smuggled cell phones. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is lobbying to revive a bill that would make it illegal to smuggle cellphones into California prisons. Currently, it’s a violation […]
A former guard at the Cimarron Correctional Facility in Cushing, OK was ordered Monday to stand trial on a charge of bringing two cell phones and several pouches of tobacco into secure areas of the private prison in Cushing. Danny James Galbreath, 24, of Broken Arrow, waived his right Monday to a preliminary hearing on the felony count of bringing cell phones into the prison — which are considered contraband in a penal facility. Galbreath […]