In May of 2011 we wrote about a British prison that solved the problem of contraband cell phones by installing landline telephones in each of the cells of a jail. The results were fewer smuggled phones, less violence, and even fewer failed drug tests! Now another prison in the U.K is taking the same approach.

For existing jails and prisons where the installation of a hard wired wall phone is impractical due to cost and infrastructure limitations, a secure prison cell phone solution such as meshDETECT will achieve the same results with no capital outlays.

Prisoners have been given telephones inside their cells despite ministers promising to crack down on perks behind bars.

Convicts at a young offender institution in Kent in the United Kingdom have become the first in state-run jails to be given personal landlines that they buy credit to use at any time of day or night.

They can only ring numbers approved by the authorities and cannot receive calls on the handsets, while the cost of installing them is being covered by BT.

If the pilot scheme is deemed a success it could be copied in public sector prisons across England and Wales, having been used for several years in privately run institutions.

But it is taking place at the same time as the new Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, has vowed to stop prisoners spending all day in their cells watching television or playing video games.

Unions also fear that governors are putting phones in cells in order to reduce the amount of time that criminals spend on landings or communal areas, allowing them to reduce the number of guards required.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “Greater use of IT could transform prison education, resettlement and family contact but as a complement to, not a substitute for, good professional staffing.

“No one wants Big Brother hi-tech prisons with everyone held behind their doors and no human interaction.”

The deputy general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, Harry Fletcher, said: “There must be safeguards that these phones are not used to contact, harass or intimidate victims. The same goes for drug dealing and organised crime.”

However he added that the move may reduce the number of mobile phones being smuggled into prisons.

Until recently inmates had to queue up to use phones on prison landings if they wanted to speak to friends or family, prompting a black market in mobiles brought in by visitors. Many jails now allocate time slots for individual prisoners, who must give details of who they want to call, to use the public handsets.

But some newly built jails run by private firms have started to feature phones inside cells, and now HMYOI Rochester has become the first state-run prison to install them.

In the pilot scheme, selected cells on two wings have been fitted with telephones at the Victorian institution, which is currently home to about 600 men aged between 18 and 21 who have been sentenced to up to four years behind bars.

Under the BT system, they must set up a personal account that is accessed by a PIN and give the authorities the names, addresses and phone numbers of the people they wish to call so a list can be approved. The calls are monitored and recorded by the authorities, and inmates are warned against saying anything linked to crime, escape plans, threats or coded messages.

Prisoners must buy credit to use the BT Pinphones and calls to landlines cost 9p a minute but ringing a mobile costs 20p a minute. There is no limit to how many calls they can make.

Inmates can also have televisions in their cells for £1 a week while those given “enhanced” status for good behaviour are allowed PlayStation consoles from home and can sleep on their own bedding.

Last month the prisons watchdog, Nick Hardwick, said too many prisoners were “lying on their backs in their cells watching daytime telly” because of a lack of money and staff to give them useful activities.

But some of the in-cell perks could be scrapped as ministers try to stop prisons being seen as “holiday camps”.

A law is being passed that will allow jamming devices to block mobile phone signals in jails, while access to satellite TV channels could be removed.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: “Ministers are reviewing the policy around the incentives scheme for prisoners. It is crucial that these incentives are appropriately earned and that they have credibility with the public.

“A pilot scheme has been running at HMYOI Rochester which gives prisoners limited access to phones in their cells. In cell phones are subject to the same security controls that apply to phones on the communal landings, no prisoner can receive calls on this system.

“This pilot will be evaluated and the results considered along with the other benefits associated with the incentives scheme.”

Source

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There was a brief posting on the social media site MetaFilter recently regarding the impact of the high cost of prison telecommunications services entitled “Don’t Phone Home From America’s Prisons.”

Among the effects of the high cost of prison phone calls is the marked increase in contraband cell phone smuggling across the country.

The comments that followed the post primarily discussed individual experiences with prison phone systems. One comment in particular caught our eye:

“Jail landlines are crowded and not always available, or not always available safely to an inmate.

And then there’s the desire for privacy. Not secrecy, privacy. Would you want to talk about your personal medical stuff, or talk about your mom’s operation, or tell your sweetie how much you miss them….or talk about being queer or trans, or talk about racist violence around you or talk about prison rape…right out there when maybe the person who was threatening you could hear? Or the guards could hear so they could pick on you some more? Maybe withhold your meds?”

This is one of the ways in which our secure prison cell phone solution benefits the incarcerated. While there are many meshDETECT features that benefit the prison administration, such as cell phone call recording and monitoring, the ability to conduct a personal conversation in a private manner is an inmate benefit.

Why should we care if there are benefits of the service for the inmate? Because it has been shown that recidivism is reduced through frequent family contact. The ability to conduct a personal conversation with a modicum of privacy facilitates a higher quality interaction with family and friends.

This benefits society as a whole.

The post Inmate Cell Phone Service…Not Secrecy, Privacy appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.

This article discusses the abandonment of a potential law to make it illegal to smuggle cell phones into prison in California. It mentions how most smuggled prison cell phones are used by prisoners to keep in touch with their families and the importance of that contact in reducing recidivism.

A proposal to make it illegal to smuggle a cell phone into California’s prisons, or be caught with one inside the prison has been dropped – as it would be too expensive to implement.

Although forbidden by regulations, Californian is one of the few US states that has not upgraded the possession of a Cell Phone inside a Prison to a criminal activity, unless it can be proven that the phone was used by the prisoner to commit a crime. As a result it is claimed that smuggling of phones into the prisons is rampant, with an estimated 11,000 handsets confiscated in 2010.

Famously, prison guards have recently confiscated a cell phone from the notorious murderer, Charles Manson – twice.

Deputy Corrections Director Richard Subia said that: “We’ve found them in walls, put down inside of walls, inside of toilets, in peanut butter, in garlic…” Subia says you’d be surprised.

Subia says prison visitors, men and women, young and old, smuggle phones to inmates. So does a full spectrum of prison workers. “We had an officer that we stopped in one of our Northern California prisons who said he made $100,000 one year for bringing in cell phones.”

State Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) had proposed a bill that would make it a crime to smuggle a phone into prison and would also result in longer sentences for prisoners caught with a cell phone.

However, California’s Department of Finance estimated the longer sentences could cost up to $50,000 more per year, per inmate.

Therefore the bill was dropped by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It has been argued before though that while many phones are indeed smuggled into prisons for criminals to continue to direct their illegal activities, the majority are simply used by prisoners to keep in contact with their families. The cost of a landline phone call often being prohibitively expensive for prisoners it can lead to a break-up of existing family relationships, and remove an important support mechanism when the prisoner is eventually released.

Source

The post California Drops Law to Criminalise Smuggling Phones into Prison appeared first on meshDETECT® Blog.