The UK Justice Secretary recently announced that more prisoners will get in-cell phones to help maintain the family ties which can cut re-offending by 40%. The Justice Secretary unveiled plans for a further £10 million roll-out of in-cell landline telephones to help prisoners preserve relationships with their own loved ones and reduce tension on prison wings.

In justifying the investment, the announcement highlighted the three main benefits of enhanced communication:

• Family ties are a vital part of rehabilitation, an important link over the festive period, and ultimately help to cut the number of future victims of crime
• Restricted in-cell phones will also reduce both tension on the wings and demand for the illicit mobiles which fuel violence
• The roll-out is part of wider efforts to bring stability to prisons and boost inmates’ prospects of rehabilitation

Similar to the traditional bank of prison wall phones, all calls on in-cell phones are recorded and can only be made to a small number of pre-approved numbers. In the event that they are suspected of being used for criminal activity, calls can be monitored, and prison administrators can remove the phones of those who have misused them.

In a subsequent interview, the Justice Secretary stated that the in-cell phones would not be able to receive phone calls, unlike an illegal mobile phone.

“At the moment they can only make calls out, and that is not true with mobiles. Families come under huge pressure to phone into mobiles that are held illegally in prison and that can be very difficult for them,” he added. What is different is that if someone is in absolute crisis in the middle of the night, they can actually phone someone they love rather than asking a prison officer who is patrolling the entire wing.”

He also stated, “In-cell telephones provide a crucial means of allowing prisoners to build and maintain family relationships, something we know is fundamental to their rehabilitation. Introducing them to more prisons is a recognition of the contribution I believe in-cell telephones make to turning prisons into places of decency where offenders have a real chance to transform their lives.”

Response to the plan has been varied. An ex-prisoner interviewed made the following points:

• A great initiative and a step in the right direction, it may ultimately fail to achieve the government’s ambitious goals.
• The prison phone is too expensive and instead prisoners should be able to receive incoming calls via the prison pin system.
• The importance of family ties in prison is massive and supporting a loved one in prison can be the difference between life and death. I think it would reduce self-harm and suicide.
• He questioned why the roll-out is costing £10 million, one third of the additional £30 million allocated to prisons in the last budget, particularly given the phone lines are already in place.
• Most illicit mobiles in prison are in fact used only for keeping in touch with loved ones rather than criminal behavior.

Our view is that the philosophy and intent of this initiative is correct, but the implementation is deeply flawed. The reasons for this are twofold:

• The £10 million cost is a wasted capital cost that could be used for other investments (not to mention the ongoing operating costs to maintain, repair and replace). Why incur the handset and wiring expense when secure prison cell phone solutions such as meshDETECT cost nothing to the prison to deploy and maintain?
• Handsets on walls do nothing to improve the digital literacy and technological competency of inmates. In a recent interview the MoJ digital chief stated, “Prisons have been bypassed by the digital revolution. I think the opportunities of digital in that space are huge, and I’d like to leave a legacy of work that will take years to deliver, where we move much more towards a [situation] where, when you’re in prison, you can do useful things in your cell.”

What “useful things” can an inmate learn, accomplish, or gain in terms of digital literacy and technological competency by using a payphone handset connected to the wall of his cell?

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A new law has been passed to ban cell phones in prison cells in Rhode Island.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Michael J. McCaffrey and Rep. Raymond H. Johnston Jr. sponsored the bill that makes it illegal for prisoners to possess “any portable electronic communication device.”

Under the new law, inmates caught using a cell phone can be punished by a $5,000 fine, a maximum penalty of five more years added on to their prison sentence, or even both.

However, it’s not currently illegal to possess a cell phone at the ACI, but inmates caught with one could face losing their good behavior credits, which would potentially extend an inmate’s sentence.

The Department of Corrections lobbied for the law, saying that it would increase safety and security at the ACI.

“This new law will prevent inmates in prison from directing crimes behind bars,” said Rep. Johnston (D-Dist. 61, Pawtucket).

By creating and implementing the new law, the Department of Corrections is hoping to deter illegal activity from taking place while inmates are still behind bars.

“A prisoner should not have access to any type of cell phone or wireless device for the safety of fellow prisoners, corrections officials and individuals affiliated with the inmate outside of the prison walls,” said Senator McCaffrey (D-Dist. 29, Warwick).

Source

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This is one of the best articles I have seen that demonstrates the problem of contraband prison cell phones can be solved simply by providing prisoners access to telecommunications services in their prison cells.

In the case of this British jail, that access was provided via land-line phones. But wouldn’t a secure prison cell phone service be simpler and less expensive? In the case of this prison, the results of the in-cell telephony experiment were fewer smuggled phones, less violence, and even fewer failed drug tests!

Illegal mobile phones in jail are a challenging issue for the Prison Service. Thousands have been confiscated over recent years and thousands are still in daily use by prisoners. Tabloid newspapers tell us that the phones are used by criminals carrying on their business from inside. Why else would they need mobiles, they ask, when there are telephones on the landings of every jail in the country? But the headlines mask the truth.

Phones were installed on prison landings after the Lord Justice Woolf inquiry into the Strangeways prison riot in 1990. Before then, prisoners used to rely on letters; a slow method of communication for all, and impossible for thousands of illiterate prisoners. Woolf criticised the meagre contact between prisoners and their families, and recommended installing telephones on prison landings.

But getting access to a phone is not easy. Most prisoners can only call out during prisoner association periods. The times of these vary, but can be as little as one hour a day. This causes problems, and arguments and fights over calls are a regular occurrence.

Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners, published this from a prisoner at Risley jail, in Cheshire, who complained he was unable to call his seriously ill father every day: “There are four phones here on B wing, but only three work,” he wrote.

“Association is from 6pm to 7pm, but it is usually 6.15pm before we are unlocked. There are 120 inmates on this wing; if we had the full hour and everyone had 10 minutes on the phone, that would allow 18 prisoners to make calls.”

He went on: “Every act of violence I have witnessed here has been due to the phones, or lack of them. The situation is open to bullying and causes mental distress to those who can’t phone home.”

But there is a better way. At Lowdham Grange, a category-B prison in Nottingham, prisoners can make phone calls from landlines in their cells 24 hours a day. Prisoners there submit a list of numbers to be approved, then pay in advance for their calls, which can be monitored.

I ask one ex-offender just released from Lowdham Grange how many contraband mobiles were in the prison. “Very few,” he says, “they are not needed, when men can phone their families at any time day or night.” He admits to having used illicit mobiles in other jails, but only because the usual method of telephoning home was so restrictive.

But elsewhere, most prisoners resort to keeping an illicit mobile in their cell. Although some of these are smuggled in by prisoners, many are brought in by prison staff (there is a going rate for doing so).

One prisoner’s wife says her husband regularly calls her on a clandestine mobile. She works evenings, so is unable to talk to him through legal channels. She accepts he is breaking prison rules, but believes regular contact is important. “I like to keep him abreast of family life, involve him in decision making, it makes him feel part of the family he is away from,” she says. “But it would be nice to do it legitimately.”

Lowdham Grange is operated by Serco, which has also installed landlines in some cells at Dovegate prison, Staffordshire. Serco is so confident that they are not being abused that it plans to install phones in all five jails it operates in England.

“The introduction of in-cell telephony at Lowdham Grange was followed by significant improvements in prison security, including a marked reduction in attempts to smuggle mobile phones into the establishment,” says Vicky O’Dea, prisons operations director at Serco. “The number of prisoners failing random mandatory drug tests also fell following the introduction of the scheme.”

She says the phones have made the prison safer. “Prisoner safety improved – there were fewer assaults, less bullying and fewer incidents of self-harm. Prisoners could make phone calls in more decent conditions, and the frequency and quality of contact with their families increased. Maintaining family contact is a proven factor in reducing the likelihood that prisoners will reoffend; consequently, introducing the phones led to an improvement in rehabilitation.”

For now, state-run prisons have been reluctant to adopt the same stance. The prison service says it is “exploring the possibilities of a pilot installation [of in-cell phones] in a state-run establishment, as we recognise the advantages and benefits of such a system”.

Meanwhile, most prisoners will have to keep hanging on.

Source

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