An interesting article on the use of electronic devices to aid in managing and controlling prisoners. According to the prison warden, “It’s a way of managing them. When an inmate gets idle, they start fighting. Allowing prisoners to own entertainment devices gives the guards something to take away if a prisoner misbehaves. If there’s a rule violation, the first thing we do is take away their property.” Given that most prisoners seek contraband cell phones […]
cellphone
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Armed with only an illegal cellphone and a cadre of secret shoppers, an inmate at the nation’s largest single federal prison was able to coordinate upwards of $1 million in credit card fraud in the outside world. According to a rather exhaustive piece in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the inmate, already serving time in New Jersey for credit card fraud, would spend up to 17 hours a day on his phone, calling directory assistance to ask […]
Kershaw County traffic officers made a prison contraband seizure while patrolling on I-20 Saturday. Deputies say they conducted a traffic stop on Reco Maurice Bell of Columbia. A routine driver’s license check indicated that Bell was driving under suspension and operating an uninsured vehicle, said Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews. While interviewing Bell, deputies noticed two duffel bags on the rear seat of his vehicle and asked for permission to search. The officers said in […]
The California Senate voted unanimously Thursday to make smuggling a cellphone into prison a misdemeanor crime with up to a $5,000 fine – a bill similar to one that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed as too weak. The senator who carried last year’s legislation, Los Angeles Democrat Alex Padilla, is also carrying this year’s version, Senate Bill 26. It was sent to the Assembly on a 39-0 vote. Prison authorities annually seize thousands of contraband […]
This article discusses the contraband prison cell phone legislation working its way through the California legislature. It states that a smuggled prison cell phone sells for $1000. Offering inmates a secure prison cell phone service would eliminate the value of the contraband cell phone in prisons. That’s the bad news. The good news is that California State Senator Alex Padilla pushed a bill to punish cellphone smugglers through its first stage of approval yesterday (his […]
Buddy, a playful 1-year-old black lab, strikes fear into the hearts of Maryland’s most dangerous criminals. Dogs like Buddy are in demand worldwide with Maryland taking the lead in teaching law enforcement agencies how canines can detect the new prison contraband: Cell phones. Maryland’s innovative training of cell phone-detection dogs drew K-9 units from law enforcement agencies and correctional institutions from Washington, D.C., Kansas, Pennsylvania, Oregon, South Dakota and New Jersey for a recent three-day […]