An article describing some of the technical problems with contraband cell phone jamming in a prison. Unlike the managed access systems used in the United States, this Cayman Islands implementation blocks all cellular signals. Except, it doesn’t.

“What we’ve been told is that the tower and cell phone jamming technology are essentially cancelling each other out,” said Eric Bush, portfolio of internal and external affairs deputy chief officer. “We have experienced what they call ‘signal bleeding’ – that’s when the tower signal overpowers the jamming equipment.”

Her Majesty’s Prison Service in the Cayman Islands has been using cell phone jamming equipment at Northward men’s prison since late 2009, according to the government’s Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs.

It just doesn’t work properly.

Portfolio officials made comments on the issue following a recommendation by Complaints Commissioner Nicola Williams that the prison service install and implement cell phone jamming equipment in response to dozens of the devices being found at Northward last year.

“Since, realistically, it is virtually impossible to stop cell phone and BlackBerry use in prisons, this is a sensible, viable and – in the long-term – cheaper alternative which would avoid regular and repeated use of strip searching as a means of retrieval,” Ms Williams said, following a review of an incident where three teenage female prisoners at Fairbanks women’s prison were strip-searched in an operation that recovered two cell phones from the prison dorm.

According to information obtained through an open records request, a cell phone jamming system was installed and has been operational at Northward men’s prison since December 2009. The technology was in use during 2010, when some 74 cell phones were found at the men’s lockup.

Government officials confirmed Wednesday the cell jamming equipment had not been working in all areas of the prison or at certain times, largely due to the proximity of a telecommunications tower next to the Northward site.

“What we’ve been told is that the tower and cell phone jamming technology are essentially cancelling each other out,” said Eric Bush, portfolio of internal and external affairs deputy chief officer. “We have experienced what they call ‘signal bleeding’ – that’s when the tower signal overpowers the jamming equipment.”

Prison officials are reluctant to discuss the specific nature of the problems caused by the dueling technologies, but Mr. Bush said it was clear the cell jamming equipment purchased in 2009 wasn’t working the way government wanted it to.

“We want to effectively nullify cell phones within the prison service,” he said. “I want to make them useless.”

The government has engaged in discussions with the cell phone jamming providers and also intends to speak with both LIME and Digicel, which use the Northward telecom tower facilities. Mr. Bush said the government was hopeful a resolution could be worked out, once all parties were in agreement.

Ms Williams said in her earlier recommendation that land line phones would remain unaffected by cell phone jamming equipment.

“The minor inconvenience it would cause to staff who wanted to use cell phones and BlackBerrys for personal use would be far outweighed by the benefits,” Ms Williams stated in her recommendations to the government. “Phone-jamming equipment is currently used in prisons in many countries including; France, India, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, and Sweden and is currently being considered for use in prisons in Germany and the United Kingdom.”

The prisons service has a detailed policy on when and how strip searches should be used. Among those instances include when contraband is believed to be stashed in the prison, which Ms Williams said can be problematic if officers are determined to have used unreasonable force is searching for a cell phone or sim card.

To the average person who doesn’t spend a lot of time in prison, cell phones might seem a harmless device. However, Mr. Bush, whose portfolio has responsibility for law enforcement in the Cayman Islands, said prison officers work in a different world.

“In the hands of individuals [a cellphone] can be used as a method or tool to orchestrate chaos and murder,” Mr. Bush said.

Source

The post Prison Cell Phone Jamming Not Working appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.

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 become more prevalent. Unlike prison cell phone jammers, the meshDETECT secure cell phone solution has no upfront capital costs and recovers the prison phone call commissions currently being lost via the smuggled cell phones.

Frustrated by the state’s inability to prevent thousands of illicit cellphone calls made by inmates from its prisons, California’s corrections chief is seeking help from an industry that has a big financial interest in his cause.

Prisons Secretary Matthew Cate said he will offer a deal to companies that bid for the next contract to provide phone service for state inmates: Install costly equipment that will block cellphone calls and see profits surge as prisoners use authorized services to connect with the outside world.

“If cellphones are inoperable, the company will make more money,” Cate said in a recent interview.

Prisoners are supposed to use pay phones mounted on the walls of their housing units to call people outside. They are charged collect call rates, and the conversations are recorded and monitored by prison staff. But the proliferation of smuggled cellphones in recent years has reduced use of the authorized phones and the ability to monitor them, and officials say they cannot afford the technology to block cellular signals.

The contract for inmate phone service is up for renewal. Cate wants the winning bidder to pay the estimated $16.5 million to $33 million that it would cost to install “managed access” systems in all 33 state prisons.

In one day earlier this year, a test of the system intercepted more than 4,000 attempts to place calls, send text messages and access the Internet from smuggled cellphones at a single prison, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Paul Verke. He would not reveal which prison, citing security concerns.

Use of authorized phones went up by 64% in the days after the test, Verke said.

Dorothy Cukier, an attorney for Global Tel Link, the Alabama company that supplies pay phones and collect call service to California’s prisons, said that “contraband cellphones certainly have had an impact” on the number of calls placed from her company’s phones. The firm “welcomes the opportunity to discuss” Cate’s proposal, she said.

Prisoners’ rights advocates and civil libertarians say Cate’s plan would lead to financial exploitation of inmates and their families, many of whom struggle to pay for daily necessities. A typical 15-minute call from an inmate costs about $2.

“When the prison system gives the phone company a monopoly, they jack up the price,” said Margaret Winter, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national prison project. “What we want to do is encourage more contact. That’s a prime predictor of [inmates’] success in the future.”

Bobby Taylor, who was recently released from Avenal State Prison in Central California, where he served part of a 19-month sentence for drunk driving, said he had a Samsung phone for most of his time there. He stayed out of trouble checking Facebook, following his favorite fishing websites and staying in touch with his 13-year-old daughter, he said.

“The prison system is mad because nobody uses the phones on the wall anymore,” Taylor said.

The state’s take from the pay phone concession was $26 million in 2008, when legislation was passed to bring down the cost of inmates’ calls. The government’s share has been reduced by $6.5 million per year since, prison officials said, and will be reduced further, to $800,000, this year.

Prison officials have been warning legislators that the explosion of smuggled cellphones — guards confiscated 261 devices in 2006 and more than 10,000 in 2010 — poses a public safety threat. Inmates use them to run criminal enterprises from behind bars and arrange assaults on enemies inside. Even the most closely watched inmates have been caught with them. Notorious killer Charles Manson has been caught with two.

Legislators complain that prison employees are the most likely sources of smuggled phones because, unlike visitors who must go through metal detectors, employees are not searched on their way into work.

Taylor said he rarely saw anyone using the wall-mounted pay phones during his sentence at Avenal.

“I think the only time people would use the wall phones,” he said, “was to call their people” on the outside “and get another cellphone.”

Source

The post Prisons Seek Ally In Crackdown On Cellphones appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.

The “legitimate” use of prison cell phones by prisoners to stay in contact with friends and family is highlighted in this article. Amazingly over 10,000 contraband prison cell phones were confiscated in California prisons in 2010. That is lost revenue the state could have earned by deploying the meshDETECT Secure Prison Cell Phone Solution.

Update (4/19/12) This bid has been awarded to GTL

Frustrated by the state’s inability to prevent thousands of illicit cellphone calls made by inmates from its prisons, California’s corrections chief is seeking help from an industry that has a big financial interest in his cause.

Prisons Secretary Matthew Cate said he will offer a deal to companies that bid for the next contract to provide phone service for state inmates: Install costly equipment that will block cellphone calls and see profits surge as prisoners use authorized services to connect with the outside world.

“If cellphones are inoperable, the company will make more money,” Cate said in a recent interview.

Prisoners are supposed to use pay phones mounted on the walls of their housing units to call people outside. They are charged collect call rates, and the conversations are recorded and monitored by prison staff. But the proliferation of smuggled cellphones in recent years has reduced use of the authorized phones and the ability to monitor them, and officials say they cannot afford the technology to block cellular signals.

The contract for inmate phone service is up for renewal. Cate wants the winning bidder to pay the estimated $16.5 million to $33 million that it would cost to install “managed access” systems in all 33 state prisons.

In one day earlier this year, a test of the system intercepted more than 4,000 attempts to place calls, send text messages and access the Internet from smuggled cellphones at a single prison, said California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Paul Verke. He would not reveal which prison, citing security concerns.

Use of authorized phones went up by 64% in the days after the test, Verke said.

Dorothy Cukier, an attorney for Global Tel Link, the Alabama company that supplies pay phones and collect call service to California’s prisons, said that “contraband cellphones certainly have had an impact” on the number of calls placed from her company’s phones. The firm “welcomes the opportunity to discuss” Cate’s proposal, she said.

Prisoners’ rights advocates and civil libertarians say Cate’s plan would lead to financial exploitation of inmates and their families, many of whom struggle to pay for daily necessities. A typical 15-minute call from an inmate costs about $2.

“When the prison system gives the phone company a monopoly, they jack up the price,” said Margaret Winter, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national prison project. “What we want to do is encourage more contact. That’s a prime predictor of [inmates’] success in the future.”

Bobby Taylor, who was recently released from Avenal State Prison in Central California, where he served part of a 19-month sentence for drunk driving, said he had a Samsung phone for most of his time there. He stayed out of trouble checking Facebook, following his favorite fishing websites and staying in touch with his 13-year-old daughter, he said.

“The prison system is mad because nobody uses the phones on the wall anymore,” Taylor said.

The state’s take from the pay phone concession was $26 million in 2008, when legislation was passed to bring down the cost of inmates’ calls. The government’s share has been reduced by $6.5 million per year since, prison officials said, and will be reduced further, to $800,000, this year.

Prison officials have been warning legislators that the explosion of smuggled cellphones — guards confiscated 261 devices in 2006 and more than 10,000 in 2010 — poses a public safety threat. Inmates use them to run criminal enterprises from behind bars and arrange assaults on enemies inside. Even the most closely watched inmates have been caught with them. Notorious killer Charles Manson has been caught with two.

Legislators complain that prison employees are the most likely sources of smuggled phones because, unlike visitors who must go through metal detectors, employees are not searched on their way into work.

Taylor said he rarely saw anyone using the wall-mounted pay phones during his sentence at Avenal.

“I think the only time people would use the wall phones,” he said, “was to call their people” on the outside “and get another cellphone.”

Source

The post CA Prisons Seek Jammers in Cellphones Crackdown appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.