meshDETECT® is pleased to announce that it has recently received a notice of allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for U.S. Patent Application Number 15/700,144 entitled “System and method for controlling, monitoring and recording of wireless telecommunications services in penal institutions.”

A notice of allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office is a written notification that a patent application has cleared internal review and is pending issuance.

This fourth patent further expands our Secure Prison Cell Phone Solutions™ intellectual property portfolio and solidifies our position as the prime innovator in the prison mobile device space. The claims in this latest patent are directed toward monitoring an inmate’s mobile device use and then remotely modifying inmate access to features and functions based on the detection of tampering with or prohibited usage of the device.

As more correctional facilities deploy wireless communications devices to inmates, these devices have the potential for criminal mischief if not closely monitored and strictly controlled. Prison authorities need timely notification of misuse or tampering as well as the ability to restrict or disable critical device features and functions, on an automatic or ad hoc basis.

Additionally, correctional facility staff need the capability to take immediate action to mitigate an individual inmate’s breach of the device use rules, or even restrict the functionality of all of the prison populations’ devices in the case of emergency situations such as a riot or lock down.

Brian Byrne, Managing Partner of meshIP, LLC commented, “With this fourth patent, we now have intellectual property which covers the four key aspects of secure wireless inmate calling – system, application, device management and now device security. There continue to be many industry announcements regarding personal communications device roll outs in prisons and jails, but we believe we are the only inmate communications services company with the intellectual property portfolio protecting these four core elements of the rapidly emerging inmate mobile device market.”

Update: The patent (US10,278,076) was issued on April 30, 2019 by the United States Patent Office. You can view the patent here: Fourth meshDETECT patent.

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Despite the many sensationalist press accounts of prisoners using smuggled contraband cell phones to plot crimes or run criminal enterprises from within jail, the vast majority of prison cell phone use is detainees talking to loved ones.

It has been shown that increased communications between detainees and loved ones helps to keep families together during incarceration and reduces recidivism. Incarceration is a strain on all involved, as this article demonstrates, and leads to the smuggling of cell phones in an attempt to keep a marriage intact.

A prisoner who hid a mobile phone up his bottom claimed he was using it in a desperate last-ditch attempt to save his troubled marriage.

Drug dealer Paul Nolan was found with the phone clenched between his buttocks after a period of home leave was granted by Castle Huntly prison.

Nolan, 45, arrived back at the jail after seven days at home with his wife, who told him that she was planning to bring their marriage to an end.

He handed prison officers an iPhone that he claimed he had accidentally brought back with him and was sent to his cell.

However, a short time later a search of his cell was carried out and a second phone was found.

Nolan, who is serving more than six years in jail after a raid on his Cambuslang home netted £300,000 worth of drugs, had secreted the phone in his bottom.

But he was unable to clench his buttocks tight enough to hold it in place and it fell to the ground when he stood up during the search on September 14 this year.

Fiscal depute Carol Whyte told Perth Sheriff Court on Wednesday: “The accused returned from a seven-day period of home leave. He spoke to members of staff and told them he had accidentally brought an iPhone with him.

“A routine search of his cell was then carried out at 9pm. At that time he was lying on his bed. Officers gave him a full search. They spotted a Samsung phone on the ground which fell from his buttocks.”

A charger was also found connected to a games system.

The accused has been moved to HMP Addiewell in West Calder.

Solicitor Linda Clark, defending, said: “He enjoyed privileges in Castle Huntly and part of that was home leave. During his period at home his wife indicated she had initiated divorce proceedings.

“During the seven days he made attempts to try and dissuade her. He surrendered the iPhone when he got back. When he got to his cell an offer was made to him regarding another mobile phone.

“Stupidly, he purchased that solely with the intention of keeping up contact with his wife in the hope he could dissuade her from proceeding with the divorce action.”

Ms Clark told the court that Nolan’s efforts had failed as his wife was carrying on with her divorce bid and she said he accepted he breached the trust placed in him by prison chiefs.

Nolan admitted having an illicit mobile phone in prison and he had a further 20 days added to his sentence.

He had been moved to the low security open prison just over a year ago after being jailed in March 2010 for drug dealing.

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An article from the Cayman Islands regarding the problem of detecting contraband cell phones and SIM cards in prison. The meshDETECT secure cell phone solution does not use SIM cards to avoid the problem of prisoners sharing a phone by swapping SIM cards.

A new machine acquired by HMP Northward will help in the fight to stop inmates getting access to mobile phones and SIM cards, which officials believe may be contributing to the current surge in violent gang killings. Prison authorities have admitted for some time that cell phone use by inmates is a significant problem. The governor revealed Friday that police suspect the ‘orders’ for some of the recent killings could have come from inside the prison walls via cell phones. The new BOSS II, which was bought by HMP Northward using a donation from the FCO, is a hyper-sensitive, non-invasive metal detector that can pinpoint where on the body a visitor or inmate could be hiding something as small as a SIM card.

While regular body scanners may pick up cell phones — though as phones get smaller and slimmer they too become harder to detect — SIM cards are particularly difficult for prison officers to find as they are much easier to hide. With SIM cards in their possession, inmates can share just one phone inside the prison, enabling them to not only intimidate witnesses, carry on illegal businesses such as drug trading and keep in touch with gang members, but also, as authorities now believe, they can use the cards and cell phones to order hits on people outside the prison from literally inside their cells.

The chair, which cost $7,500, was unveiled in the visitor’s room at Northward Prison on Friday morning when Governor Duncan Taylor explained that it works a little like an airport scanner. He said it would make it much more difficult for the cards and phones to be smuggled into the prison and improve security.

“We face a challenge with prisoners who are bringing contraband, mobile phones and SIM cards into the prison, which allows them to make inappropriate contact with people on the outside,” the governor said as he revealed the concerns that the latest frightening surge in violence may have connections to the prison.

“Cayman is in a very difficult place at the moment following five murders in eight days,” the governor said on Friday morning when the chair was unveiled to the media. “We believe that there is some contact between the criminals in Northward and some of the people involved in these crimes in the last few days.”

Dwight Scott, the prison director, said that sweeps were being conducted throughout HMP Northward to try and locate the phones and cards. He said that this issue was one of the biggest headaches in all corrections facilities and they were doing everything they could to try and find them. He explained that phones enable people in prison to continue their criminality, from ordering murders to carrying on their drugs businesses. Although the technology to detect phone signals does existy, HMP Northward does not have access to it.

The chair, Scott said, was only one of the tools that the prison continued to use to tighten security and he explained that it would also help prevent weapons getting inside the prison walls. Although the prison does not have a reputation for excessive violence or a particular problem with weapons, Scott said it was important to remain vigilant. The director pointed out that the chair will also help to detect weapons, such as prison-made knifes, known as shanks, or razor blades.

During a demonstration of the sensitivity of the chair, it was able to detect a paper clip in the mouth of one of the prison officers. Scott said the chair was also mobile, meaning it can be used to scan new inmates, visitors, staff, prisoners after they have had contact with visitors, or when they are returning from court, and it could also be used for spot check searches.

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This article discusses the problem of illegal prison cell phones in the State of Texas. As with most states, the initial approach to deal with the problem is to try jamming contraband prison cell phones. The cost of this approach has yet to be quantified however.

State corrections officials said Friday that a test of cell phone detection technology at a Southeast Texas prison where an inmate used a contraband phone when he escaped last month has encouraged them to move forward with plans to install the devices around the sprawling system to thwart the illegal activity.

A Coral Springs, Fla.-based business, cellAntenna, recently spent more than two days at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Stiles Unit, outside Beaumont, and showed how its technology could find phones inside the prison, said Rick Thaler, director of the Texas prisons.

“The next step in the process is putting out a request to vendors in the field that offer similar technology so they can put forth their proposal as to their services and what they can provide us,” Thaler said.

There was no immediate cost estimate.

“Part of that is contingent on how many devices you put at a facility,” Thaler said. “The more you put in, the more you can hone in on the particular location or at least a particular building that the phone is used in.”

He said it was realistic to believe the technology could be in place by the end of the year.

“We’re trying to move forward as rapidly as possible with the request,” Thaler said. “Hopefully it’s another tool we’ll have in the near future.”

Illegal cell phone use has been a problem for years now in Texas, which has the nation’s second-largest prison system, and other corrections agencies nationwide. Technology to disrupt phone calls, known as jamming, also is available, but its use is illegal under a 1934 federal law.

The managed access cellAntenna uses, which is legal, “allows them to divert cell phone signals and send them on a detour essentially to a dead end so the calls are not completed,” said Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas criminal justice department.

Livingston last month ordered a demonstration of the technology after 27-year-old convict David Puckett escaped from the Stiles Unit. He was captured five days later in Omaha, Neb. John Moriarty, the agency’s inspector general, said Puckett’s possession of a cell phone behind bars was “a major component of the escape.”

“We did a forensic examination on the phone he was caught with and there were 300-plus calls to a woman who assisted him,” Moriarty said. “It just shows you how the security procedures set up in the prisons are totally circumvented.”

Moriarty and Livingston blamed friends and families and even some employees for smuggling the phones or arranging for drops outside the prison where inmates on work details can retrieve them.

“There’s a host of reasons,” Livingston said. “You really can’t pinpoint one in particular.”

He said comprehensive video surveillance has eased the contraband problem at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston, where a couple years ago an inmate used a smuggled phone to call and threaten a state legislator. Similar video security is being installed at the Stiles Unit.

“We feel once completed, it will make a big difference in the nature of all contraband,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can on a number of fronts to battle this.”

“I think the technology is there to deal with the problem,” Moriarty said. “It depends on how much money you want to spend.”

Texas Department of Criminal Justice Chairman Oliver Bell, at a prison board meeting Friday, called security “the most important core function we have in the agency.”

He said the term “zero tolerance” didn’t allow for exceeding expectations, yet for the agency the only acceptable goal was zero.

“We have people on the other side of walls who have 24-7, 365 — time — to mess us up,” Bell said. “Our job is to stay a couple minutes ahead of them.”

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