Slashdot Mirror
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."
as usual, management
The only thing that will stop this is jamming the signal in prisons and that will need to be under federal control seeing as it's the staff who smuggle most of the phones in.
This is what you get when you privatize prison system.
and in case you haven't heard yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Jamming communications that allow contacting emergency services lands you straight in federal prison.
Maybe not exactly the right tool, but something in that category. For some reason, the government can't figure out how to use Stingray properly and have a host of circuit court rulings against them.
In a prison, the cell phones of prisoners are contraband. A Stingray like device could be used for intercepting those and figuring out the rest of the criminal enterprises.
The BOP could also make cell phones contraband for the staff too, and solve a whole sorting problem.
Home of The Suki Series
Over the years I've read various discussions concerning the problems caused by use of mobile phones in certain areas - for example within a cinema or theatre. Suggestions for remedies have included, for example, extending the cell phone standard to allow a "local suppressor signal", which could be generated by a licensed and restricted-access transmitter, and which would then need to be respected by handset OS providers.
I think the complexity of implementation prohibited further development...
However, there is a much simpler approach that could be of specific relevance to prisons, since these are, by their very nature, often "stand-alone" structures, kept well away from other buildings. The solution would involve placing multiple local cell towers at the periphery of the prison grounds, and have them provide a strong, healthy signal in the area. This would force all local handsets to handshake with one of these local towers.
Except these would be special towers, with the ability for the prison officers to use triangulation to determine the location of the handset. If there was a suggestion that a handset requesting access to the tower was physically within the area of the prison, then the handset could be blocked from accessing the cell network. Since the local towers would know the ID of the handset, it could simultaneously be sent a simple SMS message explaining why access had been blocked [as a courtesy to innocent passers-by, so they would know it wasn't a general reception problem]. This technique could easily be modified to permit guards to use their handsets in appropriate areas [such as a canteen]. Obviously, for security reasons, you would not want to permit guards to walk around inside a prison with a cell-phone [because a bribed guard could easily give an inmate access].
When enough towers are available, triangulation of handsets is both reliable and accurate, so not only could it be used to block use of handsets by inmates, it could in theory be used to determine the physical location of handsets to an area of the prison of no more than a few cells. If that could then be coupled with local hand-held scanners, locating and confiscating illegal handsets might become quite a lot easier.
Or maybe put less people in prison? As a European I can not suppress the impression that the US is using its prison system as a giant rug under which to hide some structural problems in its society. Alas, I see the same tendency here in some political parties, so it is probably only a matter of time ... but one may hope as long as one can vote.
In the late 1960's and early '70's prisons were becoming alarmingly empty. Well in 1972 (sarcasm) good thing President Nixon came to the "rescue" starting the very expensive "War on Drugs," we pay taxes for. The prisons started to fill up again, mostly with people who could not afford a good attorney. - I would love to see an article explaining how we got to be the number 1 nation in imprisoning people. The over crowding that and systematic starvation. Cold and hot extremes they endure. How they now are making new laws to imprison more people because they have "Prisons for Profit", which are hungry for more prisoners. Forced labor. Forced payback on "rent" for your say. And we still pay taxes for private!! Also, how people get imprisoned for minor infractions like having as little 1 joint in their possession in some States.
Prisons have a cellphone problem. The rest of us have a Stingray problem. Put two and two together, apply whitelisting and recording as appropriate, and add a footnote about a "reasonable expectation of privacy". Problem solved.
Prisons consider phone calls to be a money fountain. Basically, they are squeezing money out of prisoners trying to keep connections with family.
Many many studies have shown that the single thing that is most important to reducing recidivism is that the prisoners have ties to family and community OUTSIDE of the people they meet in prison. So, basically, the main effect of high cost of phone calls home is to INCREASE crime.
The whole bit about criminals running criminal enterprises with cell phones is mostly a distraction. The prisons want to delete cell phones purely because their monopoly on phoning home makes them tons of cash. If criminals were running criminal enterprises on cell phones, the solution would be a wiretap.
from the article: 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.
As long as there's a profit to be turned from putting people in jail, guess what...more and more people will wind up in jail.
The world would be a better place if those turning a profit from incarcerating non-violent criminals were held accountable for the damage they've done to society and forced to spend the rest of their lives in the institutions they created.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Actually, I think there was a drive toward rehabilitation in prison from the 60's to the late 80's, especially at the federal level. They claimed three purposes of incarceration; the three R's: Restraint (I'm not robbing more banks while I'm locked up), Retribution (punishment to help victims feel closure and serve as a deterrent to other), Rehabilitation (changing me so I am less likely to break the law after my eventual release).
Restraint clearly works. I robbed 0 banks during the entire time I was in prison.
Retribution seems to work. I can't tell you how many people have told me they have always wanted to rob a bank but were too scared of the punishment.
Rehabilitation pretty much left the federal system in 1987. Reagan and a couple of Supreme Court decisions effectively removed both the expectation and the reality of rehabilitative efforts. They gutted the the programming available to inmates, which had been quite extensive in some places.
Trump has golfed more than twice as much as President Obama.
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
He's done a shit job in Puerto Rico and has zero legislative accomplishments to his name. By any objective measure, Trump is an historic failure as a president, as a man, and as a human being.
https://www.vox.com/2017/10/1/...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Chicago Tribune is a conservative Republican newspaper.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I would love to see an article explaining how we got to be the number 1 nation in imprisoning people.
There's 10s of thousands of articles out there on the War on Drugs, take your pic.
The real problem is our inability accept facts and logic. Eliminating drug abuse by forcefully stopping it wasn't an entirely unreasonable thing to try, especially back then when the issue wasn't well studied. But it's 100 years now since the first drug prohibition, and >40 of the modern War on Drugs. It has been demonstrated beyond any doubt that no matter how harsh the penalties, even the death penalty for drugs some countries have, prohibition does not work. Anybody can get any drug they want, even in maximum security prisons. Our 4th Amendment rights are nearly dead largely because of this. Loads of other rights are seriously damaged. Police becoming heavily armed soldiers with us as the enemy are a consequence of this. You might be able to justify all that, and the millions upon millions of lives ruined, and the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, if it was eliminating or seriously reducing the harm drugs cause to society... but it unequivocally is not.
Drugs like cocaine, heroin, and meth have horrific consequences when they're abused; to the user, to their family, and to society. Since eliminating them is absolutely never gonna happen, we should instead pick the policy that minimizes the harm caused. Most people are simply incapable of accepting that criminal prohibition instead takes these very harmful substances, and increases their harm by orders of magnitude, and strips everyone of their civil rights.
If you want to:
-Minimize the number of addicts,
-Minimize the number of ODs,
-Minimize acquisitive crime (property crime to raise money),
-Minimize violent crimes,
-Maximize opportunities for people with abuse issues to get help,
Then you have to provide tightly regulated, but legal, access, to all drugs. There's been extensive studies on this, it's not some random idea, it's a thoroughly studied and validated fact. Use does not increase. Portugal decriminalized all drugs for personal use; use went down. Turns out there's not loads of people saying 'gee, I sure wish heroin wasn't illegal, I'd try it otherwise'; something compounded by the fact the people most likely to develop an abuse issue are the least likely to be deterred by legality. All of the money currently spent on prohibition would instead go to education, prevention, and treatment- every dollar spent on that reduces drug abuse more than a dollar spent on prohibition. The money taken away from violent criminal organizations would completely cripple them. There'd be more cooperation with police who weren't constantly breaking down doors and shooting dogs, or sexually assaulting people on the side of the road with cavity searches (seriously, google roadside cavity search). There'd be less harassment when police couldn't bump their numbers with petty drug crimes.
It's a hard fact to swallow, because you see the damage drugs can do, and desperately want that to never happen. But since that's impossible, you have to instead mitigate. However bad you think a given drug is, prohibition makes it worse. Whenever you say "Well, $x shouldn't be illegal because $y", $y is made worse, not better, by keeping it illegal.