As we have written before, managed access cell phone jamming systems being tested in prisons around the world have been deployed with mixed results. In addition to requiring ongoing management and investment post deployment, they have a spotty record and not all vendor’s equipment works as advertised. Recently, the Cayman Islands issued a report on their managed access trial. According to the report, which is discussed in the article below, “The prisons service installed a […]
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Following a trend in the UK, another prison will install in-cell phones. According to the article, the reasons for this deployment are positive impact on prisoners’ rehabilitation, encouraging the maintenance of family ties, and reducing the prevalence of illegal mobile phones. Prisoners will have phones installed in their cells under new plans for a Midland prison. The move at HMP Birmingham, which takes inmates from across the Black Country, comes despite a law being introduced […]
Update: We have submitted our thoughts on this complex issue to the FCC. You can read them here and download the actual filing here. The FCC today issued FCC 13-58, Contraband Wireless Device Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), to “remove barriers to the deployment and viability of existing and future technologies used to combat contraband wireless devices.” The NPRM discusses current technologies such as managed access, detection, jamming and wireless carrier service termination of identified […]
Update (8/9/13): Today the FCC, led by interim Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn, voted to limit how much companies can charge for phone calls from behind bars. A decade after families of prison inmates asked for action, the Federal Communications Commission voted on a proposal to cap interstate phone rates at 21 cents a minute for debit or prepaid calls and 25 cents a minute for collect calls. Companies wanting to set higher rates would have to […]
A news report about smuggled cell phone sniffing dogs used in the Arizona Department of Corrections. Highlights from the report include: The dogs spend 9 weeks — 320 hours — learning how to detect cell phones. Contraband wireless phones that can be bought for as little as $40 on the outside go for as much as $800-1,200 on the inside. They’re smuggled in by friends and family during visits, by staff, even purchased during work […]
The CDCR recently issued a bid for its inmate telephone services and made the installation of wireless managed access jamming systems in its prisons a requirement for the bidders. Global Tel*Link (GTL) has won that bid and will therefore be bearing the cost of installing these systems. Given the high cost of this selective jamming technology and GTL’s commitment not to raise the cost of calls for prisoners, either the CDCR is taking a much […]
Each of the Wilcox State Prison’s 1,862 inmates were strip searched, then removed from their cells and placed in a holding room. Officers then entered two at a time, sometimes accompanied by a member of the K-9 unit. By the end of the shakedown, officers had confiscated 32 cell phones, 21 weapons and small amounts of marijuana and meth. Most of the items were well hidden: behind walls, in ceilings or inside of a broken […]
Good thing she brought along a hands-free device! On Sunday, at around 12:30 p.m., a woman attempted to enter La Reforma prison in San Rafael de Alajuela with a cellphone, its charger, and a hands-free device hidden in her rectum. The woman, who was visiting one of her three incarcerated brothers, was promptly arrested, according to the daily La Nación. Earlier in the day, another woman who happened to be four months pregnant had tried […]
Deputies in South Carolina say a woman used two hollowed-out Bibles to try to smuggle drugs, a cell phone and weapons to a prison inmate. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition? Sheriff Barry Faile said Monday authorities began investigating 28-year-old Shareca Latoya Jones earlier this month after a package mailed to Lieber Correctional Institution was returned to a post office in Lancaster. Inside the package were two Bibles containing razor knives, a cell phone, […]
Contraband cell phones are a problem in Canada as well as the US. As this article describes, one method of getting the contraband into a prison is to throw it over the prison fence. Staff at a federal prison in central Alberta have intercepted a package of illegal drugs and contraband cellphones intended for inmates inside. Correctional officers at Bowden Institution, 40 kilometres south of Red Deer, found the contraband during a perimeter check about […]