CONVICTS WITH CELL PHONES RAPIDLY GROWING PROBLEM

With the miniaturization of cell and smart phones, these devices can easily be concealed within body cavities and passed on from visitors to prisoners or from crooked correctional officers to inmates. The smuggling of cell phones into prisons is a rapidly growing problem in every state.

PRISON OFFICIALS BATTLE CELL PHONE SMUGGLING
By Neil Nisperos

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
December 12, 2010

With thousands of cell phones and smart phones getting into the hands of the state's prison inmates, officials are busy finding ways to deal with a growing problem.

As of last week, the state had confiscated 9,648 cell phones in the past year. Officials found 429 phones this year at the California Institution for Men in Chino.

Inmates across the state have used smuggled phones to arrange escapes, plan attacks on other prisoners, coordinate narcotics trafficking, direct street gangs, communicate with other inmates, and even videotape guard tactics, officials said.

The numbers have doubled each year since the state began monitoring the problem, said state spokesman Paul Verke. The proliferation of the phones has caused major concern for prison officials and lawmakers.

"The main problem is the cell phones circumvent the monitoring process," Verke said. "This means the inmates could have unmonitored communications with outside elements and that poses a major security risk. Second, modern cell phones can record video images, conversations, and they can access the Internet, and as such are a vehicle for inmates to potentially commit crimes."

Lt. Mark Hargrove, spokesman for the Chino men's prison, said inmates are finding more creating ways to hide the phones and finding them becomes increasingly difficult as the technology gets smaller.

"We have on several occasions found wristwatch cell phones so now you have to be looking out for those things," Hargrove said.

In addition to the deployment of cell-phone sniffing dogs, Verke said state corrections officials are looking into a technology called managed access which intercepts text messages.

A Mississippi prison, with clearance from the FCC, has already been using the technology. California prison officials are looking into a pilot program at one of the system's prisons next year, which they hope to expand statewide.

"The FCC fully supports this technology in combating the growing problem of contraband cell phone use in state correctional facilities and the evidence in Mississippi, which intercepted over 26,000 text messages in its first days of deployment, is strong evidence that other correctional organizations such as California can realize the benefits of the technology," according to a statement from the Department of Corrections.

Cult killer Charles Manson, who is [confined] at Corcoran State Prison, was reportedly caught with a cell phone in March 2009. Calls and texts he made were made to people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia, Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. The cell phone also showed missed calls from Florida, Massachusetts, Arkansas and Indiana.

It's not clear how long Manson had the phone or how the people who called him got his number, Thornton said. His phone was confiscated, and she said he has not been caught with one in the 21 months since.

Employees caught bringing in phones can be fired, and inmates who are caught with them can be disciplined.