This article from the LA Times summarizes the contraband cell phone challenges the California prison system is experiencing, with no solution seemingly in sight. However, the one positive and logical approach to this issue is suggested by Najee Ali – co-opt the problem by provisioning secure prison cell phone service, much like secure payphone service is currently offered. When the nation’s most notorious mass murderer has a phone under the mattress in his cell, it’s […]
cellphone
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As we have written about before, wireless airtime and contraband cell phones have become the new prison currency. According to this article, smuggled cell phones in Ohio prisons are “a commodity inside our system,” used to sell and barter, and for personal use, said Vinko Kucinic, the corrections department’s chief security-threat investigator. Gangs, he said, are “power-based. If they can control the contraband trade, they have power.” A cellphone costing $25 on the street can […]
Good thing she brought along a hands-free device! On Sunday, at around 12:30 p.m., a woman attempted to enter La Reforma prison in San Rafael de Alajuela with a cellphone, its charger, and a hands-free device hidden in her rectum. The woman, who was visiting one of her three incarcerated brothers, was promptly arrested, according to the daily La Nación. Earlier in the day, another woman who happened to be four months pregnant had tried […]
This article touches on just about all the key issues and challenges facing prisons, detainees and families when talking about the contraband cell phone problem. Key quotes from the article: Availability – “cellphones are just everywhere in prison nowadays…. It’s easy to borrow one from a guy”. “This year, guards (in California) are on pace to seize about 15,000 phones — nearly one for every 11 inmates.” Corruption – “Almost as troubling as prisoners gaining […]
This bill and associated executive order are an attempt to hinder the smuggling of contraband cell phones into California prisons. These legislative efforts may slow the supply of cell phones, but they will not eliminate it. Just as illegal drugs continue to flow into prisons around the country, contraband cell phone smuggling is supply meeting demand. Until a strategy to address the fundamental demand for more communications between prisoners and their loved ones is also […]
The creative smuggling of contraband cell phones into prison is not just limited to the Untied States as this article on a remote-controlled helicopter smuggling cell phones in Thailand shows. We guess that it’s a generally accepted rule that cellphones aren’t allowed in prison, and we’re guessing it’s for a huge variety of reasons. After all the point of prison is to serve your time and rehabilitate yourself, and not to spend all day yakking […]
Providing prisoners secure cell phones is an idea whose time has come. The latest British prison to provide land-line phones in prison cells to control the contraband cell phone problem is being chosen for a trial of service. This is after a similar successful trial in a private UK prison. According to the article, the reason for this latest initiative is, “to stamp out the illegal use of mobiles in prisons and the flourishing black […]
The main source of contraband cell phones in prison is the prison staff, including guards. They smuggle cell phones because the demand for wireless phones is so high that they can charge as much as $1000 per phone. This officer only received probation after being caught smuggling two cell phones. The threat of as many as three years in prison did not dissuade him from bringing contraband cell phones into his jail. A former corrections […]
Even a person with a long history of crimes committed wants to keep in touch with and talk to her children. This person paid to use a smuggled cell phone to call family members. Now due to being caught with the contraband cell phone, she will spend more time in prison. There is a legitimate need for meshDETECT’s secure cell phone service in prisons. A woman serving time in the Accomack County jail who was […]
This is an article on contraband prison cell phones is an interesting analysis of the impact smuggled cell phones have had on the revenue from prison payphones. In a quote from the article, a prisoner states, “The prison system is mad because nobody uses the phones on the wall anymore.” In California, as in other states, there has been a big drop in the number of prison phone calls made as illegal cell phones have […]