Smuggled Cell Phones Only Begin To Illustrate The Prison Communication Dilemma

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Today’s topic: Prisoners have increased access to the outside world via smuggled mobile phones. Should convicted felons have access to portable communication devices? If not, how can prisons cut down on the influx? If so, how can prisons monitor cell phone access?

“The presence of cell phones is changing the very meaning of imprisonment,” writes Wired’s Vince Beiser in issue 17.6. “Incarceration is supposed to isolate criminals, keeping them away from one another and the rest of us so they can’t cause any more harm. But with a wireless handset, an inmate can slip through walls and locked doors at will and maintain a digital presence in the outside world.”

Beiser outlines the principle concerns: Prisoner cell phone use is illegal because of security threats; if a prisoner wants to order a hit on the individual(s) who testified against them in court, for example — or if they simply want to harass people on the outside — a mobile phone simplifies things. So how do prisons curb cell phone use? Beiser notes tactics ranging from phone “jamming” (which is illegal under the Communications Act of 1934, but currently under dispute) to a “decidedly low-tech”approach: “Alba, an irrationally exuberant, gingerbread-colored Belgian Malinois. It turns out that mobiles have a distinct scent, which specially trained dogs like Alba can detect.”

Interesting stuff. But as Beiser also notes:

“[T]he easiest — and probably most common — way mobiles are moving into prisons is in the pockets of guards and other prison staff. ‘There’s no question that corrupt officers are involved,’ says Texas inspector general Moriarty. The risk is small, the payoff big. Correctional staff coming to work are typically searched only lightly, if at all, and a phone can fetch a couple thousand dollars. One California officer told investigators he made more than $100,000 in a single year selling phones.”

If this is the case — and if most calls are “just [prisoners] saying hi to family and friends” — shouldn’t prisons move toward monitoring cell phone use rather than stopping it? As anyone who’s watched Oz can testify, the problem with cell phone use is less a matter of who one calls on the outside rather than who has access to the cell phone on the inside — and how they use it to influence others in lockup.

Peripheral to this issue is, as one Wired commenter called it, “the paranoia”:  In Pennsylvania, where I interact with prisoners daily (mostly via snail mail), the system all but encourages cell phone smuggling: Prisoners are required to register all visitors and callers at least a month in advance, and even then, phone calls are constrained by 20-minute time limits and the fact that prisoners are required to call collect. If those were your phone limitations, wouldn’t you look into cellular options?

Related reading:

* Police foil prison phone delivery

* Prison’s mobile phone blocker does not work

* Texas prison officials want mobile phone jamming technology

* “Maybe they should upgrade to satellite phones now?”

* Mobile Company Sued Over Prison Phones

* Inmate Gets 60 More Years in Prison for Mobile Phone Possession

* Former Prisoner Sues Over Confiscated Mobile Phone