Slashdot Mirror
South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone Signals
Corey Brook writes "The South Carolina state prison system wants the FCC to grant them and local officers permission to block cell phone signals. News has been out about the growing problem of them perps smuggling cell phones into prisons for a while now. Inmates use cell phones as commerce, to implement fraud, smuggle drugs and weapons, and to order hits. Of course, some may use it to just talk to a loved one any time they can." Hopefully movie theaters and restaurants do it next.
I work right next to SCDC's main prison facility in Columbia. Right now, the thing that really concerns us is "spillover" of this jamming into our area. We have a wifi network that we depend on (and cellphones we need, of course) and so the last thing we need is this plan having unitended consequences for wireless signals. It doesn't help that South Carolina state government has a long history of hiring shoddy technology contractors who promise the world and deliver a buggy product that only makes things worse. Jon Ozmint (the head of SCDC) has sworn that it won't leak outside of their facilities, but I'm somewhat cautious.
The Ridegville test referred to in the article wasn't that worthwhile because Ridgeville is isolated (it's in the middle of nowhere and lagely self-contained.) The main facility in Columbia is a much larger, more wide open area located right next to the state police headquaters, Dept. of Public Safery, and several other state agencies and businesses--all of whom depend greatly on their cellhones, networks, and communications equipment. I just don't see how they could blanket that whole area and not have spillover jamming--Unless they restrict it to inside of their buildings which would mean that most prisoners would still have plenty of opportunities to use their cellphones (since most prisoners spend a lot of time outside the buildings, except for the really high-level ones)
It's not that we're not sympathetic to the problem of cellphones in the prison system. We're just worried that they might be rushing forward with an untested and possibly ill-advised solution that could have a deleterious effect on nearby wireless usage. We're hoping they will at least give us a testing period to see its effects before they bring it online.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
There's a restaurant in my area which accidentally set up at Faraday Cage with the wire mesh used in their stucco exterior. Cell phones don't work inside.
I suppose with a prison like this they have multiple buildings and the prisoners might have time outside where they could use cell phones. Then, of course, they want their own guard's radios to work.
Cell phones in prisons have been big news in Texas, after a Death Row inmate was stupid enough to make threatening calls to the chairman of the state Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. They're still being found, weeks after a supposed crackdown that turned up dozens of in-cell cell phones systemwide, along with an inordinate amount of drugs and weapons.
The Grits For Breakfast criminal justice blog has been following the issue closely, asking questions like "Will we see prosecutions of staff who smuggle cell phones in addition to inmates and family members paying for their minutes?" Answer: probably not. Sen. Whitmire, whose family was the target of phoned-in threats from Death Row, summed it up pretty nicely at an emergency Senate hearing on the issue. TDCJ officials promised to implement a plan they'd been working on, to prevent guards from smuggling contraband to prisoners, to which Whitmire responded with a question: Why the hell weren't you doing that already?
One story mentioned a phone that was only found by an abdominal X-ray. I wonder if it was this little bugger? Oh, sorry, bad choice of words.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Many inmates get, and get to keep, whatever they want, (drugs, weapons, phones) via bribed and/or intimidated guards...at least a 'blanket' jamer would sidestep the problem. You can't cavity-search all the inmates and staff every 20 minutes...
No, they couldn't. Phone blockers don't magically decrypt the GSM/CDMA radio stream and parse it for a calling number.
I think you need to watch a few PBS documentaries on prisons to understand how they work and the stresses that the guards are under.
Also, the money that it takes to run a prison is rather high, you don't have unlimited manpower, and it's dangerous stuff. So item #2 isn't likely to happen with out about 5 other guards with you, in full gear. #3 isn't really feasible since a guard could sell access to his phone, which potentially wouldn't be closely watched.
Your statement about the other dangerous stuff is 100% correct.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Anyone who has studied the eye will be quite aware that the peripheral vision is far more sensitive to changes in light, while the focused vision is more sensitive to color. There are many more "rods" in the eye, about 120 million, than cones, but the rods are not sensitive to color. They are sensitive to light. The cones are sensitive to color, but are mostly clustered in the focal area. An interesting experiment to perform is to set up a dimly flashing light in a dark room and just allow your peripheral vision to pick it up. It will appear to be brightly flashing. However, if you then look directly at it, the flash will not appear anywhere near as bright.
So yes, the light from cell phones in the movie theatre would be very distracting in your peripheral vision.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Modern prisons (especially lower security ones) aren't built like they used to be, where every prisoner is in a cell by themselves or with a single roommate. Oftentimes there are dormitory-like conditions where a dozen or so inmates are in a room together. In addition, there are frequently common-areas (other than the cafeteria) when inmates are gathered in groups. These types of situations make it easier for inmates to hide contraband, especially where other inmates have an interest in assisting or at least no interest in actively preventing it. Add to this modern construction techniques (drop ceilings in a prison? WTF?) and you're asking for trouble.
You can argue all day long about whether sentences are supposed to be punitive or rehabilitative, but the current situation (with regards to prison rape, drug use, and other contraband) is a direct result of these modern innovations (dorms, common areas, etc.)
An ideal prison (IMO) would be more like Alcatraz, where each individual prisoner was kept in an separate, concrete block cell. I think if you had this kind of control, you'd be more able to do rehabilitative things (like provide access to computers, etc) whereas now the risks are too high.
Of course, that kind of facility wouldn't be cheap, and since we're running so many prisons I don't see it happening.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
In Illinois, the collect call rate for the prison system is $2.00 to accept a call, then 25cents/min thereafter. Criminal. The fact is, contact with outside family is the only thing keeping some of these inmates sane, and helps reduce the recidivism rate as well. These collect call rates tend to lead to phone service disconnects for the people who accept them.
A half hour call with my brother costs more than it would cost to add another line to my cell phone plan.
State prisons held a total of 1,274,600 inmates on all charges at yearend 2004. In absolute numbers an estimated 633,700 inmates in State prison at yearend 2004 (the latest year for which offense data is available) were held for violent offenses: 151,500 for murder, 178,900 for robbery, 129,400 for assault, and 153,800 for rape and other sexual assaults. In addition, 265,600 inmates were held for property offenses, 249,400 for drug offenses, and 88,900 for public-order offenses.
Source: Sabol, William J., PhD, Couture, Heather, and Harrison, Paige M., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2006 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2007), NCJ219416, p. 24, Appendix Table 9.
1.2 million people in state prisons, .6 million in for violent offenses, and you'll see that it's around half.
Federal prisons were estimated to hold 176,268 sentenced inmates as of Sept. 30, 2006. Of these, 16,507 were incarcerated for violent offenses, including 2,923 for homicide, 9,645 for robbery, and 3,939 for other violent crimes. In addition, 10,015 inmates were serving time for property crimes, including 519 for burglary, 6,437 for fraud, and 3,059 for other property offenses. A total of 93,751 were incarcerated for drug offenses. Also, 54,336 were incarcerated for public-order offenses, incluging 19,496 for immigration offenses and 24,298 for weapons offenses.
Source: Sabol, William J., PhD, Couture, Heather, and Harrison, Paige M., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2006 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2007), NCJ219416, p. 26, Appendix Table 13.
These facts and others at http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/62
176k people in federal prison, 16k for violent offenses, and it's about 90% of the people who are in for non-violent offenses.
It's also very trivial to get charged with a violent offense, the sad reality is. Often police add on resisting arrest/misdemeanor assault on a police officer (in at least one jurisdiction I've lived in - DC - the crimes are the same) to just about any arrest where the person made any attempt at all to get away.
The ridiculous prison industrial system that exists also creates a culture where violence makes more sense. If you're risking going to prison for decades, life, or more, for a nonviolent offense, you might as well use violence to get away. After all, if you aren't rich enough to afford a lawyer, being a good person - or even being innocent - might not keep you out of prison.
-bugg
A long time ago I saw a TV documentary on military prisons. It included interviews with the prisoners. The military prisons didn't seem to have any of the problems that plague civilian prisons. Maybe it had something to do with all the prison personal being trained soldiers but I also remember one of the prisoners saying "we're just too tired to cause problems."
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop