COST TOO HIGH TO STOP SMUGGLING AND USE OF CELL PHONES

What is it about ‘pay now or you’ll pay more later’ that the Kookfornia legislators don’t get?

CALIFORNIA BILL TO RID PRISONS OF SMUGGLED CELL PHONES SHELVED OVER COSTS
By Julie Small

KPCC
April 22, 2011

In most states, if you smuggle a cell phone into a prison, you’ll end up spending time in prison - but not here. California has no law to keep contraband cell phones from inmates. Law enforcement officials and most lawmakers agree California needs one, but it’s unlikely to pass this year - because it costs too much.

Robert Johnson used to be a prison guard captain in South Carolina. Last year, he was getting ready for work when someone kicked in the front door of his house.

"All of a sudden I hear this ‘boom,’" Johnson recalls. "I heard somebody yell ‘Police!’ So I come out the bathroom. We meet in the hallway."

Johnson came face-to-face with a man holding a gun.

"We tussled and somehow I guess he broke away and he raised his .38 and he shot me at point-blank range in the stomach and chest six times," Johnson says.

That pistol wasn’t the only weapon aimed at Johnson. The other was the cell phone used to order the "hit." Johnson says an inmate had been selling cell phones to other inmates for $800 a pop. Johnson had cracked down on his operation and his profits.

"Through a cell phone, he found exactly where I lived," Johnson says "He found the city. He even found my phone number all through the Internet with his cell phone. And he found an ex-inmate; he paid him thousands of dollars to kill me."

The suspects are facing federal charges, including the inmate accused of arranging the hit. Robert Johnson, now 58, spent three months in the hospital, and he’s not done yet. His medical bills have topped $1 million. His days as a prison guard are over.

Johnson recounted his harrowing story at a recent conference hosted by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Corrections officials say inmates use cell phones to order hits, run drug rings – and threaten victims, witnesses and judges. Prison guards have confiscated a cell phone from Charles Manson – twice.

Deputy Corrections Director Richard Subia says prison staff confiscated 11,000 cell phones from inmates last year. "We’ve found them in walls, put down inside of walls, inside of toilets, in peanut butter, in garlic..." Subia says you’d be surprised.

Subia says prison visitors, men and women, young and old, smuggle phones to inmates. So does a full spectrum of prison workers. "We had an officer that we stopped in one of our Northern California prisons who said he made $100,000 one year for bringing in cell phones."

The Department of Corrections fires staff that smuggle cell phones into prisons. But the Attorney General can’t prosecute them or the inmates that use the phones unless a phone was used to commit a crime. State Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) says that’s not good enough.

Padilla told the Senate Appropriation Committee last week, "There are no consequences either for the inmates who are caught with cell phones and there is no consequence for either a visitor or an employee who is caught smuggling cell phones in, and that is unacceptable."

Padilla was arguing for a bill he authored to make it a misdemeanor to smuggle cell phones into a California prison. Anyone convicted would get six months in jail and up to a $5,000 fine, per phone. Padilla’s bill would also add extra time to the sentences of inmates found with contraband phones – but reducing good time credits.

But that’s why the Senate Appropriations Committee shelved the measure. The Department of Finance estimates the longer sentences could cost up to $50,000 more per year, per inmate.

Senator Padilla argues the state will save money by preventing crimes that inmates could carry out with cell phones. "We don’t suspect, we know that they are being used by inmates to commit and coordinate crimes both inside and outside of prisons," Padilla said in closing.

The Senate Appropriations Committee put Padilla’s bill "on suspense" – a kind of legislative backwater for more costly bills. The committee will reconsider all those bills on a single day next month. Most bills "on suspense" end up dying in committee.

This is Padilla's third attempt to criminalize cell phones. Last year the legislature passed a similar bill. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it.