According to the article below about legislative initiatives in Maryland to increase the penalties for smuggling, possessing or receiving contraband cell phones in prison, “Cell phones are a lucrative form of contraband because, unlike drugs, they have a significant and perpetual resale and rental potential and value.”

With a change of mindset, cell phones can also be lucrative form of commissary revenue for prisons. By deploying a secure prison cell phone solution with all the controls and forensic capabilities of traditional prison payphones, prisons can reduce the demand for contraband cell phones while tapping into a new source of revenue that will offer welcome relief to over-stretched prison operating budgets.

Keeping cell phones and other electronic devices out of the hands of inmates and punishing those prisoners found with such contraband is the aim of two bills that have recently been the subject of committee hearings in the General Assembly.

Cell phones have been a problem at state prisons, especially in metropolitan areas.

The problem isn’t as severe at prisons located in rural areas because friends and relatives can’t simply hand cell phones through fences or toss them over the walls as easily, prison officials have said.

“Cell phones are a lucrative form of contraband because, unlike drugs, they have a significant and perpetual resale and rental potential and value,” according to a fiscal and policy note to the bills prepared by the Department of Legislative Services.

The contraband phones have been implicated in a prisoner’s arrangements for a hit on a witness in the prisoner’s murder case and in transactions involving a prison-based drug ring, officials said.

House Bill 587 increases penalties for possession of or receiving a cell phone or other device for prisoners and for delivering or attempting to deliver a cell phone to a prisoner.

Delivering the device to a prisoner would result in a stiff misdemeanor sentence of up to three years on a first offense and become a felony with a nonsuspendable five-year sentence on second offense, along with fines.

A prisoner caught with a device would face a nonsuspendable felony sentence of five years and a fine of up to five years. The sentence would be consecutive to any sentence the person is already serving.

Senate Bill 669 and the companion bill, House Bill 1086, would take away good-time credit permanently for prisoners caught with a prohibited device.

Good-time credits reduce a prisoner’s sentence for every day that he serves without infractions against prison rules.

Cell phones have become a big safety issue in prisons, Gary Maynard, the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, has said. Cell phones smuggled into prisons can be used to coordinate illegal activities outside the prison walls and plan escapes and attacks on corrections staff and other inmates.

Two thousand cell phones have been confiscated in Maryland prisons since 2008, according to the department.

The cell phones can be found hidden anywhere, including the bodily orifices of inmates, Maynard said.

The department is using the latest technology, including cell phone-sniffing dogs, to get cell phones away from inmates. The dogs have sniffed out 500 cell phones found since 2008. The dogs also offer something of a psychological deterrent, Maynard said.

“When they walk down the hallway, the cell phones fly,” Maynard said.

The department has a $1.2 billion operating budget and supervises 22,000 inmates in 22 prisons and 70,000 individuals on probation and parole, among other duties.

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These searches are necessary because the high contraband value of smuggled prison cell phones has a corrupting influence on guards and staff. With prisoners paying as much as $1000 per contraband cell phone, the temptation to smuggled wireless devices is too much for some prison staff. We beleive part of the solution is to lower the contraband value of the smuggled cell phones by implementing the meshDETECT secure cell phone service solution.

Random staff searches that are part of an effort to curb the smuggling of cell phones into state prisons are drawing objections from the powerful union representing correctional officers.

At issue is a two-year program – known as Operation Disconnect – that requires all adult prisons to conduct monthly searches of employees and others as they enter state facilities.

Fewer than 500 cell phones have been confiscated under the program, though some lawmakers still suspect prison employees are the main suppliers of cell phones that are reaching inmates in ever-larger numbers.

But Joe Baumann, a chapter president with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, said the modest results suggest the program is targeting the wrong people.

“Staff are just a small part of the problem,” he said. “If an employee is dirty, word gets out pretty quickly.”

Baumann said the union has complained to state officials that the searches are misguided and overly intrusive.

“There are no boundaries as far as how invasive the searches are,” he said. “People have had to take off jumpsuits, pull off vests, pull up T-shirts. They’re setting themselves up for litigation with the way they’re doing this.”

Baumann declined to say whether the union has any immediate plans to challenge the program with a lawsuit but he warned that “something is going to have to happen” if the department fails to make changes.

Unlike many other states and the federal government, California does not routinely search staff as they enter state prisons. (Visitors are required to pass through metal detectors.)

Some state officials have said they would like to impose airport-like security checks on staff at all state prisons. But Baumann said such a move would require the state to renegotiate its contract with the union and would add to the time it takes correctional officers to get from their cars, or the prison gate, to their work stations. Union members are paid for this “walk time.” Added walk time could cost the state millions, according to some analysts.

While the union presses prison officials to modify the searches, lawmakers are calling for new legislation that would toughen security and sanctions.

Last month U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein appealed to the state Senate Appropriations Committee to revive a bill that would stiffen the penalties for smuggling cell phones into California prisons.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Elaine Alquist, D-San Jose, is sponsoring legislation that would transfer oversight for searches of prison staff to the inspector general’s office “to ensure there is a neutral third party watching these to ensure their integrity.”

Alquist said the department’s current program isn’t going far enough.

“We have seen a 38 percent increase in the number of cell phones found in prisons in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year,” Alquist said. “Given those numbers, I cannot say the department is doing a good job stopping cell phones from getting into prisons.”

“A public safety problem of this significance and magnitude should not be left to the discretion of a department to address,” she said.

Last year, more than 10,000 cell phones turned up inside prisons but so far officials have failed to close the pipeline that feeds the lucrative trade. Prices for “jail phones” reach as high as $1,000.

Corrections officials defended Operation Disconnect, saying it uses existing funding and is just part of a multi-prong effort to disrupt the trade in contraband phones.

“The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is working hard to stop cell phones from getting into prisons,” said spokeswoman Terry Thornton. “We’ve identified this as a major priority but obviously a lot more can be done.”

Thornton was unable to provide data on the number of staff disciplined under Operation Disconnect.

However, earlier this year the department informed state lawmakers that it disciplined 200 prison staff for cell phone smuggling in 2009, including 100 peace officers. Of the 200 employees, eight people were dismissed from state service.

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A visit to California State Prison Corcoran was cut short Sunday when investigators smelled marijuana on a woman as she passed through security, a prison spokeswoman said.

Tisha Diane Holt was found with more than 2 ounces of concentrated marijuana hidden in her belongings. She consented to a search by prison staff and was arrested when they found the drugs, prison spokeswoman Teresa Cisneros said.

Holt, a certified nursing assistant from Los Angeles, was booked into custody for suspicion of conspiring to commit a crime and seven narcotics-related charges, including a special allegation of supplying a controlled substance.

She remained at the Kings County Jail with her bail set at $230,000 Monday.

This arrest was not the first time this year someone has been arrested for prison drug smuggling in Kings County.

The number reached 10 in March when Corcoran Prison’s Investigative Services Unit and the Kings County District Attorney’s Office busted two people for conspiring to smuggle drugs and cell phones into the facility.

Contraband continues to be a major problem for prisons across the state, with cell phones quickly becoming the hottest commodity. State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, said earlier this year that more than 10,000 cell phones were confiscated in state prisons during 2010 alone.

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