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US Prisons Have a Cellphone Smuggling Problem (nbcnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes NBC:
Cellphones smuggled into prisons -- enabling inmates to order murders, plan escapes, deal drugs and extort money -- have become a scourge in a bloc of states where corrections officers annually confiscate as many as one for every three inmates... In South Carolina, prison officers have found and taken one phone for every three inmates, the highest rate in the country. In Oklahoma, it's one phone for every six prisoners, the nation's second-highest rate... Cellphones are prized because they allow inmates to avoid privatized jailhouse phone and visitation services that charge up to $15 for a two-minute call home to friends and family. "Inmates call their mothers like most of us do on holidays," said Dr. John Shaffer, former executive deputy secretary for the Pennsylvania Corrections Department.
But for some, the phones serve a darker purpose. "Most of these guys are just chitchatting with their girlfriends, but some of these guys are stone-hardened criminals running criminal enterprises," said Kevin Tamez of the MPM group, a litigation consulting firm that specializes in prison security... Meth rings operated by prisoners with cellphones, some with ties to prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Irish Mob Gang and the United Blood Nation, have been discovered in at least five Southern facilities. Phones have also played a role in breakouts, with one South Carolina inmate dialing up drone delivery of wire cutters and cash for his escape in July. Cellphones are so prevalent in the prison system, Tamez said, that "if you don't have them, you would look like a loser."
The article reports convicts have actually uploaded in-prison videos to Facebook Live and to Snapchat. "Georgia inmates used phones to take photos of themselves tying up or beating other prisoners, then texted the horrifying images to the victim's family and demanded cash."
But for some, the phones serve a darker purpose. "Most of these guys are just chitchatting with their girlfriends, but some of these guys are stone-hardened criminals running criminal enterprises," said Kevin Tamez of the MPM group, a litigation consulting firm that specializes in prison security... Meth rings operated by prisoners with cellphones, some with ties to prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Irish Mob Gang and the United Blood Nation, have been discovered in at least five Southern facilities. Phones have also played a role in breakouts, with one South Carolina inmate dialing up drone delivery of wire cutters and cash for his escape in July. Cellphones are so prevalent in the prison system, Tamez said, that "if you don't have them, you would look like a loser."
The article reports convicts have actually uploaded in-prison videos to Facebook Live and to Snapchat. "Georgia inmates used phones to take photos of themselves tying up or beating other prisoners, then texted the horrifying images to the victim's family and demanded cash."
There's a tendency among Europeans to tribute the problems they see in the U.S. to structural problem with the U.S.
Most European states are very homogeneous in their racial makeup. The U.S. has an extremely large immigrant population, making it very ethnically diverse for a developed nation (I believe only Canada is more diverse). If you compare to a map of homicide rates, with the notable exceptions of Canada and Russia, you'll see a very strong correlation. More ethnically diverse countries tend to have more homicides.
We as a species are still very tribal. When the population is homogeneous and fewer tribes are in conflict, there tends to be less violent crime. When the population is diverse and more tribes are in conflict, there tends to be more violent crime. That's probably all you're seeing. The Canadians I've met are genuinely nice and friendly towards outsiders (almost to a fault - they have problems standing up for themselves when they're being taken advantage of). Americans tend to be more of the type who won't take crap for others. The high U.S. prison population is probably a consequence of maintaining low developed world crime rates within an ethnically diverse population. (I haven't visited Russia nor met many Russians so I can't speak for why their correlation is the opposite of most of the world.)
Drop a few million people from all around the world into any EU country, and I suspect you'd either see their crime rate or their prison population skyrocket.