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US Lawmakers Propose Allowing Prisons To Jam Signals From Smuggled Cellphones (apnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:
Federal legislation proposed Thursday would give state prison officials the ability they have long sought to jam the signals of cellphones smuggled to inmates within their walls... The legislation could help provide a solution to a problem prison officials have said represents the top security threat to their institutions.
Corrections chiefs across the country have long argued for the ability to jam the signals, saying the phones -- smuggled into their institutions by the thousands, by visitors, errant employees, and even delivered by drone -- are dangerous because inmates use them to carry out crimes and plot violence both inside and outside prison.
Corrections chiefs across the country have long argued for the ability to jam the signals, saying the phones -- smuggled into their institutions by the thousands, by visitors, errant employees, and even delivered by drone -- are dangerous because inmates use them to carry out crimes and plot violence both inside and outside prison.
They should just put up their own cell tower and intercept all calls and triangulate the call and go get the phones.
This is actually a terrible idea, but it takes the perspective of having been a felony inmate for a multiple-year bid.
What really happens with prisons is that there's a financial incentive to encourage recidivism. This means providing only enough services to receive state and federal money, but not enough to actually lower the recidivism far enough to put the prisons out of business.
If it weren't for an illegal cell phone, I would have been unable to keep my finances squared away and get out with a solid base of support, ready to work and meet my obligations--because I'd been meeting them all along. I experienced first-hand the difference that effective communication makes to staying out of the system: it's of paramount importance.
Jammers are messy. Why not just have wireless providers geofence prisons and deny service. They already have triangulation capabilities.
The prison payphones charge $10/minute to whoever accepts the call. They don't want to lose those sweet sweet kickbacks.
"If it weren't for an illegal cell phone, I would have been unable to keep my finances squared away" - 100% separate issue. Financial repercussions from confinement are not solved with illegal cell phones.
Your case does not make a mandate for all prisoners having access to illegal cell phones even if in your case as you claim it reduced your inclination. It's not a general rule, cell phones reducing recidivism.
A prison unit with 75 to 150 inmates will have maybe 5 phones available. Usually at any given time 1 to 3 of those phones will be damaged and repairs might take a month or two to get authorization because it's not a priority. Then you have the fact that inmates can't just use those phones whenever they want, they are given blocks of time during the day/evening that the phones are turned on. You might have phones available from 1pm until 8pm and everyone has to use the very few phones available during that time. Prisons have an internal inmate hierarchy and if you are way down the list the prisoners running the show may or may not let you use the phone.
When or if you do get to use the phone you better hope the person you are trying to call will be in their office and available to talk to you. If not there is no system for them to call you back on, those phones are outgoing calls only. You can't do many of those things through the mail because it would take a week to ask a question and get an answer, then your follow up question based on the first reply will take another week and cost money for postage. Friends can't handle your private business for you even if they wanted to. Most of the time family can't unless it's your spouse or you have given permission legally for another person to take care of things for you. That is pretty complicated and not free in any way.
Being in prison is the punishment. You are locked up for X months or years and can't leave. You are told when to go to bed and get up. You don't get to decide what you eat for your meals. You don't get to make any real decisions about your day to day life during the time you are imprisoned. That is the punishment handed down by the courts.
Prisoners should have access to prison installed land line phones when they need them to handle personal business. It should be monitored and recorded just like all communications in and out of the prison unless it's with a lawyer. But they should be able to handle their financial obligations and take care of the things they need to keep up on in order to have a chance at springing back to a normal crime free life after they are released. Anything else should qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. It's setting them up for failure and that is the opposite of what temporary incarceration is for. Also once a person serves their time, including parole, they should not have to tell potential employees or anyone else they were convicted of a crime. If they have paid their debt to society for their past criminal activity it shouldn't follow them around.
Why do prisoners get to have contact with the outside at all? Ban all phones, televisions, radios, visitors, letters, and the like from prisons. The prisons can still profit from the friends and families of the prisoners by allowing them to pay for their stays and meals.