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Contraband Cell Phones on the Rise in Prisons

by Lee Bains on November 21, 2008 at 12:45 PM



Contraband cell phones are showing up in prisons at alarming rates, according to USA Today.

Last year, South Carolinian authorities discovered more than 1,000 phones in the state's prisons, while Californian authorities confiscated 1,400. These extremely high numbers are largely due, corrections officers suspect, to a new method of smuggling, whereby smugglers use a sort of "launcher" to rocket the phones over prison walls.

Inmates have used the smuggled phones to call in threats to their former victims, coordinate further smuggling, plan escape attempts and, in at least one case, relentlessly seek pardon from a state senator.

While implementing cell signal-blocking technology could solve these prisons' problems outright, a current federal law prevents them from doing so. Some of the states, though, are willing to try out their luck; South Carolina plans to host a jamming-technology demonstration today. [From: USA Today]

Tags: crime, criminals, prison

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