Prison Cell Phone Smuggling Out of Control 428
Hugh Pickens writes writes "KCRA reports that the number of contraband cell phones discovered in California state prisons has exploded as prison guards, staff and vendors are cashing in on smuggled phones that can fetch between $200 and $800. Although the large majority of inmates are using the phones to stay in contact with loved ones, there have been documented cases of escape attempts, drug deals and conference calls coordinated via smuggled cell phones. 'The potential is there for the worst kind of activity,' says Folsom Prison Warden Rick Hill. Even Charles Manson has been caught with a cellphone smuggled to him. 'We know the problem is out of control,' says State Senator Alex Padilla, who has proposed making such smuggling illegal in hopes of stopping the continued rise of contraband cell phones in prison."
Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just install cell phone jammers in all prisons? Is there honestly any "right" to have cell phone signal in the prison?.
OR (Score:4, Insightful)
Or.... don't let the signal from the towers penetrate to the prison? Surely the guards can do without when they're on duty?
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
They can't keep cell phones and other items too, like drugs out of prisons. Out of PRISONS. Yet we really think we can have a War on (some) Drugs applied to the general population. Idiocy. Unlike a cell phone, drugs have a flexible shape, don't broadcast electromagnetic radiation, and don't have an attached account with somebody's name on it.
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well of course it's not working, we haven't thrown enough money at it. Just like drugs.
-The legislators
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that would be a logical, one-shot solution that would end the problem. That's no good for a politician. They want an ongoing issue they can pull out from time to time, whenever they need a distraction. There's little profit for your buddies and political capital for yourself from solving problems; there's lots to be made from prolonging them.
They'll integrate the prison guards into the DHS and hire thousands more of them to look for cell phones before they'll do something as simple and effective as installing jammers.
This again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Install jammers (probably with a whitelist of allowed phones) or STFU.
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't they just install cellphone towers specifically for prisons
If there are pesky laws against this maybe you could get away by having some "fine print" which "informs" the prisoners (who are unlikely to read it) that they are not allowed to use cellphones in the prison, and if they do, the comms may be tapped or even modified as the prison sees fit.
When opportunity knocks stop complaining about the noise.
A better solution ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop screwing prisoners who try to use the prison phone to contact loved ones.
Prisons have been seeing their phones as a profit center lately, charging a dollar per minute or more to contact loved ones. And loved ones can't call the prisoner -- the prisoner has to make the call. And often they can't call cell phones, only land lines -- but not everybody has a land line any more.
Make the prices more reasonable, drop the "no cell phones" thing, and have some way for people to call the prisoners (or at least tell them to call home beyond sending them a letter) and the demand for cell phones will drop.
Beyond that, simply get a scanner that detects the frequencies used by cell phones, install a few of them around the prison, and when they go off if the system is properly designed it could tell a guard immediately and tell them approximately where the phone is in the jail.
Re:Easy solution (Score:2, Insightful)
you just don't understand the way the system works. You need to make it illegal to smuggle stuff in so even more people are sent to jail, thus increasing your free labor centers' profit.
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the legislation is upping the category and/or the penalty.
I wonder why they would do that, given the known lack of correlation between the harshness of penalties and the occurence of crimes.
Texas, for example, has one of the highest murder rates in the US, and also has extremely harsh penalties, including the frequent use of killing convicted murderers.
North Dakota, in contrast, has one of the lowest murder rates in the US, and has never employed the practice of killing convicted murderers.
I don't know what the relevant difference is between Texas and North Dakota, but given the murder rates are anti-correlated with the harshness of the penalties it seems unlikely that the two are related at all. There is quite a bit of research to back this notion up, that after a certain point the marginal decline in a criminal behaviour for a marginal increase in penalty decreases, a fact that should come as no suprise to anyone who has been paying attention to ecnomics for, say, the past 200 years. The law of diminishing returns is a pretty fundamental result of human preference functions.
Now it may be that in the present case there are data to suggest that the point of diminishing returns has not been met with regard to cell phone smuggling in prisons, but the very first question that should be asked of people proposing legal changes of this kind is, "Where are the data to show that this new and harsher law will result in a reduction in the penalized behaviour sufficient to justify the change?"
Re:Cell Phone Jammers? (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble with the Faraday solution is that it would also stop radios from working, which means communications between the guards inside the building and outside in the yard would be impossible.
Re:Deregulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Your rant is spot on. Unfortunately, shouting about being "tough on crime" leads to getting elected, which leads to the "lock them in jail and make jail Hell on Earth" attitude.
Of course, that does nothing to actually rehabilitate criminals or actually reduce crime -- it just makes you look good come election time. Combine that with a prison system that mostly exists to increase its own profits (q.v. Arizona SB1070) and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Re:Proposed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait... does this mean that it's not illegal to smuggle certain things into prisons?
They can't keep cell phones and other items too, like drugs out of prisons. Out of PRISONS. Yet we really think we can have a War on (some) Drugs applied to the general population. Idiocy. Unlike a cell phone, drugs have a flexible shape, don't broadcast electromagnetic radiation, and don't have an attached account with somebody's name on it.
Prisons are designed to keep people in, not keep stuff out.
Re:A "problem?" (Score:5, Insightful)
the real problem, actually, is that the existing, legal phone system inside armerica's prisons is grossly corrupt. prison phone system providers are given a monopoly, charge exorbitant rates (a 630% markup over normal residential prices) and then actually kickback money to prison officials and politicians to keep their sweet contracts (57.5% of profits to the state of new york, for example).
my source for these numbers is here [northcountrygazette.org]
add to that the fact that even if an inmate can get a prison job, the wages are usually in the dollar-or-less per hour range, sometimes as low as 20c/hr, and you have a situation where the legal phone system is financially unusable. the result is that the economic impulse to get a black market cellphone -- even a $200 one -- is strong.
if america really wanted to stop black market cellphones, they'd cancel verizon's prison phone contract and offer reasonably-priced access to phone systems to inmates.
my source for the prison wages info is: here [digitaljournal.com]
Re:A better solution ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A better solution ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Proposed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Population (2009 est)
Texas - 24,782,302
North Dakota - 646,844
Density - Persons per sq mile (2000 est)
Texas - 79.6
North Dakota - 9.3
Dallas has 2x the population of North Dakota. More people, closer together, more chance for crime. Texas also has many more people below the poverty level. src: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html [census.gov]
Re:rate of re-offence (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah Russia's prison system must be effective. That's why there's no crime whatsoever, especially not organised crime.
Re:The point of being in prison (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating monsters out of somewhat dysfunctional people only makes the problem worse. "Tough on crime" is an intellectually lazy approach that doesn't help anyone but private prison operators.
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
OK so technically you could get a permit, but you have to wonder if prisons are relying on cellular for official communications at this point. It's become so cheap and prevalent - cellular is replacing radio for a lot of field operations comms requirements these days. (No I can't cite anything beyond what I see at my own job where some of the field crews are cellphone only at this point.) Anyway, if that is the case and prisons are using cellular for their own comms - jamming the prisoner comms becomes problematic and probably creates a safety issue for employees.
Re:Proposed? (Score:4, Insightful)
take a look at this map of dallas homicides in 2010. South and South East Dallas is predominately minority and low income with high gang activity.
I've included a heat map of home prices just so you know I'm not guessing about those areas economically.
It's a chicken and egg question though as to crime/poverty and I won't even go there.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/graphics/homicides/ [dallasnews.com]
http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/Texas/Dallas-heat_map/ [trulia.com]
Re:Idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why they should instead create a few microcells (or a few thousand picocells) that cover the prison grounds, then log everything that passes through those cells just like they do with calls from the phone on the wall.
This has the advantage of significantly reducing the ability of inmates to use them for harm while not reducing their ability to use them for good (keeping in touch with family, etc.). Also, it's legal and doesn't put the staff at risk.
Re:A better solution ... (Score:3, Insightful)
What exactly the U.S. Prison system is doing has not been discussed much, and sure has not been SETTLED.
It's all lost in "tough on crime" and "humanitarian" bullshit.
What prisons could be doing:
Depending on the discussion, and who you are discussing it with the prison system bounces around between all of these purposes legitimately and illegitimately.