This article discusses the legislative initiative to make it a felony in Idaho to smuggle contraband such as cell phones into prison. One interesting fact is that the Idaho Department of Corrections confiscated a cell phone that had been used over 33,000 times in six months. As we have written before, wireless is the new prison currency, and it’s likely that some of this cell phone’s airtime was traded to other prisoners for favors and other contraband.

The Idaho Department of Correction says it’s a growing problem they need to stop — cell phones illegally obtained by prisoners behind bars.

IDOC says in 2010, 18 cell phones were confiscated from prisoners.

They’re hoping Idaho lawmakers will pass stricter regulations to help put a stop to this activity.

“It has quickly grown to be the biggest problem that we’re facing,” said Deputy Warden Tim Higgins. “A cell phone that comes inside the institution can be used by an offender to do their criminal activity even while they’re incarcerated.”

IDOC recently confiscated a cell phone from a known gang leader serving time in prison. The phone had been used more than 33,000 times in six months, including text messages and calls.

The cell phones and other contraband get into the hands of offenders in a number of different ways.

IDOC says contraband is passed during visiting hours from an outsider, through secret drops and sometimes even through prison staff themselves. The contraband is often concealed in body cavities.

Cell phones can go for big bucks in prison. A regular cell phone typically sells for around $300, while a smartphone with Internet access costs around $1,200. Higgins says one inmate confessed to shelling out $3,000 for a smartphone.

“Right now if we intercept a cell phone coming into the institution all we can do is send the person away,” said Higgins.

That’s why the department is asking the Legislature to give the law more teeth. Right now, passing major contraband is considered a misdemeanor under the current Idaho law, but they’re hoping to change that.

The proposed law would make it a felony for smuggling a controlled substance, more than three ounces of tobacco, firearms or dangerous weapons, or any telecommunication device into a prison or jail.

“We need to be able to keep our facilities and our communities as safe as we can and this is a tool that will help us carry that out,” said Director Brent Reinke.

The bill has been introduced in a Senate committee. IDOC officials are confident Idaho lawmakers will pass this legislation.

Source

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A state-wide network of Georgia ex-cons smuggled contraband cell phones into prisons on demand and at $300 per cell phone. Drugs were also smuggled into the Georgia DOC facilities.

State, area and local investigators have uncovered a trail of cell phones, marijuana and tobacco that led straight to state prisons.

Several people were arrested here and in Colquitt County in connection with the operation. At least one other arrest is expected in Thomas County.

The statewide investigation showed a prisoner would request the contraband and tell the suspects where to leave the items.

The activity involved a vast network of co-conspirators outside the prisons.

The contraband would be left away from the prisons, said Kevin Lee, commander of the Thomas County/Thomasville Narcotics/Vice Division.

“The location could be on a work detail,” Lee explained. “It could be anywhere.”

The Georgia Department of Corrections Investigation Unit participated in the probe. The state agency did not respond Thursday to a request for information.

In Thomas County, Henry Curtis Ansley III, also known as Bubba, 38, 708 Hunters Chase, is charged with criminal conspiracy and unlawful possession of Hydrocodone.

Ansley is a former state prison inmate, who served time with another person charged in the investigation.

Lee said investigators found various addresses in Ansley’s text messages that told where he was to leave prison contraband.

“An ounce of marijuana will go for $400 to $500 in prison,” the commander said. A cell phone costs an inmate about $300.

When he was arrested, Ansley had hydrocodone pills in a pocket, and officers found more of the narcotic pain killer at his residence.

A corrections officer at Colquitt County Correctional Institute is charged in the case.

Richard Dale Roberts, 43, 10 Wiregrass Circle, Moultrie, is charged with violation of oath of office, felony possession of marijuana, illegal use of a communications device and conspiracy to commit a crime.

Steve Exum, commander of the Colquitt County Drug Enforcement Team, said charges on Roberts stemmed from information received from the correctional institute warden about contraband being brought into the facility.

Exum said Roberts was attempting to deliver marijuana to the correctional institute.

“It was marijuana he has just purchased from an FBI task force officer,” Exum explained.

Also charged in the case are Billy Joe Bowling, 35, 161 Dogwood Lane, Thomasville; Marcos Lewis Brewer, 22, 775 Flintside Drive, Cobb; and Jason Curry Icard, 39, 310 Highway 240 South, Buena Vista.

Bowling and Brewer are on parole, said Cpl. Kim Young of the Colquitt County drug agency.

Ansley and Brewer were in the same prison at the same time, Young explained.

Bowling, Brewer and Icard, who are charged with felony marijuana possession, were traveling in a red Honda Civic that did not stop at a stop sign in Colquitt County. A deputy made a traffic stop.

The marijuana was thrown from the car’s sunroof, Young said, adding that the contraband being tossed from the vehicle was recorded on video by a camera in the deputy’s car.

Seized in the Colquitt County arrests were a large quantity of cell phones and chargers and 90 bags of loose-leaf tobacco.

“They admitted to the intent of dropping the contraband at several state prisons, and they had several times prior,” Young said.

Source

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The website Gizmodo has a interesting article about smuggled cell phones in San Quentin. Its a pretty graphic article as you will see from the excerpt here. You can read the rest of the article here.

According to the article 10% of the population has a contraband cell phone. We believe addressing the demand for contraband cell phones by providing a secure prison cell phone solution should be part of the strategy to reduce contraband cell phone smuggling.

Smart phones are especially coveted in prison, not surprisingly. Aside from being able to more easily email, search the web and communicate, this is arguably the main way prisoners are getting their porn now. Porn, as you might imagine, is a very hot commodity in the big house.

Most of the phones that are discovered are of the pre-paid variety, which makes them extremely hard to trace. Most of the time, when phones are found they are locked and have had their SIM cards removed. In cases where they recover a phone with a SIM card they attempt to unlock it and scour it for data: phone numbers they called, text messages, emails, and any photos they may have taken.

Sergeant McGraw said that while other prisons have a much bigger problem with phones being brought in (especially prisons in more rural areas), he’s noticed a huge jump at San Quentin just within the last year. He estimates that roughly 10-percent of the population in San Quentin have cell phones, which is a stark contradiction to the 1-percent estimate inmate Sam Johnson gave us just an hour earlier.

There are many different ways that phones come in. Officer Patao mentioned the inmate crews that work for Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation). The correctional officers have made it much more difficult for this to work by making sure that inmates have no idea where they’ll be working on any given day. But if they are on a larger, week-long assignment in one area, it still happens. He also talked about drop points within the San Quentin grounds.

Drops can work in a number of ways. For example, there’s a bathroom just outside one of the main San Quentin gates which is open to the public and is a big draw for tourists. Inmate work crews clean these bathrooms every day. An inmate’s associate on the outside will have taped a package (of phones, drugs, tobacco, etc.) to the back of the women’s toilet, for example. When the inmates come to clean, they toss it in with the rest of the trash, then sort through it later. Then, when when nobody’s looking, whoop, up the butt it goes. They are usually prepackaged in latex gloves or condoms for easier insertion. Ow.

Another drop scenario: San Quentin backs up to a main road in San Rafael, with only a chain-link fence separating its grounds from civilization. This is the outside perimeter, not the security perimeter. Inmates’ associates pull over to the side of the road at night and just throw over a distinctive bag such as one from McDonalds, or Burger King. When the work crew comes out in the morning to clean the grounds, they pick the bag up, hide it in the lawnmower bag and then get the contents later.

The last way stuff gets in, though nobody likes talking about it, is that people can be bribed. San Quentin has hundreds of volunteers who come in and out all the time. While the vast majority of them are on the level, there are always people willing to sneak something in for a price. This includes correctional officers as well, though prison officials like talking about that even less.

In all of these scenarios cell phones are used to coordinate these drops, which makes it even more critical for the officers to try to keep them out.

Phones go from $300 to $700. Most of the cash is handled outside of the institution. Usually someone on the street is responsible for smuggling in the phone, and then the inmate who received the phone will have a family member or associate on the outside pay him/her in cash or money order.

Once phones are within the system they are incredibly hard for the correctional officers to get a hold of. Officer Patao says, “It’s harder for our institution because we dont’ have the luxury of having cameras recording everything here, so we have to rely a lot on information we receive from our informants.”

Sergeant McGraw agrees. “In a dorm setting, once our officers hit the yard, there are lookouts. In each unit there are five dorms—they’re tipped off and the phones are gone before we can even enter the dorm. It’s hard to track these phones down and get them while they’re on them, and they’re passed around so much.”

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