400 CELL PHONE CALLS ATTEMPTED BY INMATES DURING ONE DAY IN JUST ONE PRISON

In 2010, California prison authorities seized about 10,760 contraband cell phones, and already this year, more than 2,100 phones have been seized. And no one is claiming that all smuggled phones are being discovered.

CALIF. PRISON TRIES BLOCKING CELL CALLS
Goal is to stop inmates from using smuggled phones

By David Bienick

KCRA.com
March 10, 2011

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's top prison official revealed Thursday that the state is testing new technology to block inmates' cell phone signals.

Earlier this month corrections officials installed at an undisclosed prison location devices that block all calls made from nonauthorized cell phone numbers.

"In our first 24 hours, we were able to identify 400 cell phones at one prison that were trying to utilize the cell phone towers," Corrections Secretary Matthew Cate told KCRA 3.

The revelation came as Cate attended the National Public Safety Technology Conference in Sacramento.
"It's been very successful in just our first foray into this high-tech solution," said Cate.

The use of contraband cell phones by inmates has been a growing problem in California prisons. In 2006, prison staff confiscated 250 phones. In 2010, that number grew to about 10,760. And already this year, more than 2,100 phones have been seized.

Cate said if the pilot program proves to be a success, the state plans to deploy this technology at all 33 of its prisons. He estimated the cost at about $1 million per facility. He said the department might request the money to be included in next year's state budget. However, he said some of the cost might be reduced by renegotiating current contracts with the state's telephone service providers.

"We may be able to get a discount because we're on the cutting edge of this technology," said Cate.

California corrections officials visited prisons in South Carolina and Mississippi where this kind of "managed access" technology is already in use.

The Federal Communications Commission, which is overseeing the pilot project, said it needs to make sure that phone calls made outside prison walls are not accidentally blocked.

"The idea with managed access is that if you do the engineering right, then you can avoid that," said David Furth of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. "We still have work to do. It shows promise though."

Speakers at Thursday's conference identified multiple sources for the contraband prison phones, such as visitors, prison staff and accomplices who throw phones over fences. Corrections officials said one staff member pocketed $100,000 in a single year by smuggling phones for inmates.

However, Cate said providing daily, airport-style screening for staff would not be practical.

"We have 700-800 staff arriving at a prison to go to work all at the same time," said Cate. "So it's not like an airport where everybody trickles in. It's really a logistical problem to try to stop every staff member and search them."

Cate said the state would release more information about the results of the pilot program within the next few weeks.

EDITOR’S NOTES from PACOVILLA’S Corrections blog:

Paco says: Pssst….It’s Corcoran! [Where Charlie Manson is serving his time]

‘solano’ says: They’re blocking calls at Solano too.

Paco says: What the clueless SecrAttorney [Cate] doesn’t realize (among countless other correctional facts) is:

__There are NO prisons with 700-800 people arriving for a shift.
__Staff are already screened before entering prison.
__As a rule, prisons do not permit carry-on luggage.
__People don’t “trickle” into airports.

All this time and he STILL doesn’t know squat about basic prison operations. No wonder he’s still got a job.