A secure prison cell phone service would reduce the contraband value of the smuggled cell phones in the Texas prison where this took place.

Janet Watts, 47, Houston, Texas, was sentenced to a term of nineteen years in the state penitentiary in connection with a 2007 scheme where she was involved in sending cash by wire to a prison guard convicted of bringing cell phones into the unit where Watt’s son was in custody.

Over 134 money grams totaling over $16,000 came into Watt’s possession during 2007, most of them traced to friends and family of inmates in the Stiles Unit in Beaumont. Watts, in turn, paid out almost 40 money grams totaling over $13,000 to former TDCJ correctional Davisha Martin, and numerous other money grams to several correctional officers employed at the Stiles Unit.

Martin was caught attempting to smuggle in three cell phones on October 1, 2007. Receipts indicating that Martin received money from Watts were found in Watt’s car, and an investigation by the TDCJ Office of the Investigator General uncovered the extent of the scheme. Martin was prosecuted and served a short prison term before being granted “shock probation” in February of 2009 due to her pregnancy.

Prison Prosecution Unit Prosecutor Mark Mullin said, “This was an important step in addressing a real problem in the Stiles Unit. Prisoners who have cell phones continue to commit crimes. Aiding in the recent escape from the Stiles Unit is just a worst case example. Extortion of inmates and their families, drug deals, prison gang warfare and contract killings, and stalking women and children on the internet are all made possible by a simple cell phone.”

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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 wireless cell phones in jails.

It doesn’t take an advanced degree in criminal justice to understand that prison inmates never should have access to cell phones. They use them to plot violent crimes inside and outside the prison, plot escapes and conduct drug deals with other inmates or contacts on the outside.

Matthew Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, agrees. He said, “Cell phone smuggling into California’s prisons is a very serious and growing problem. Public safety officials in prisons and prosecutors on the outside need additional tools to combat cell phone smuggling to inmates.”

One such tool should be stiff felony penalties for anyone smuggling cell phones into prisons or accepting bribes for phones. Those penalties should be even tougher for prison guards.

Unfortunately, it is the guards who are suspected of providing most of the cell phones to inmates, often taking bribes. Yet California continues to be lax in passing laws to crack down on the problem.

Possessing a cell phone behind bars violates prison rules, but still is not illegal. Inmates can lose early release credits, and employees caught smuggling phones can lose their jobs.

Even when someone is caught, the penalty is extraordinarily light. Last month, Terry Lane, a former California correctional officer from San Jose, was sentenced to just 45 days in jail for smuggling several cell phones to state prison inmates.

Lane also was fined $5,700, which the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said was the amount of bribes Lane took from inmates for delivering the phones. The bribery charge was dropped in a plea bargain.

A more appropriate sentence for Lane would have been something closer to 10 years in state prison and a fine many times higher.

The best way to discourage prison guards from taking bribes for delivering cell phones is the use of tough penalties that include long prison terms, firing and permanent disqualification for ever working in a prison.

There are a few bills floating around in the Legislature to stiffen penalties for those who bring phones to inmates and or accept bribes for doing so.

State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, has introduced two bills this year that add penalties for inmates, employees or visitors smuggling cell phones.

Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, is carrying another bill that would require random searches of employees and contractors.

Action is long overdue. Prison officials say that the number of cell phones confiscated in California prisons has been growing rapidly over the past few years and has become a major problem that needs to be remedied.

If prison employees or visitors faced years behind bars for cell phone smuggling, we believe the practice would decline sharply. There is no good reason to delay legislation, even if there are added costs.

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The post Get The Cell Phones Out of Cells appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.

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 of prison rules for a prisoner to possess a cellphone, but it is not a crime.

Feinstein sponsored a bill making possession of a cellphone by an inmate in a federal prison punishable by up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. Now she is taking on the issue at the state level, pressing California legislative leaders to support a bill by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) that would do the same.

Legislators put the bill on hold a few weeks ago over fears it would cost too much to enforce. But Feinstein argued for its resuscitation, saying that cellphones in state prison are used to direct drug deals and killings.

“The Mexican Mafia and other gangs are able to operate while in prison through the use of coded internal communications and cellphones,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to key committee leaders in the California legislature, who are fellow Democrats.

The number of smuggled cellphones discovered in California prisons has skyrocketed in recent years, from 261 in 2006 to nearly 11,000 last year, according to prison officials.

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