More and more cellphones are being smuggled into United States' prisons — and authorities are at a loss as to how to stem the inflow.
Contraband handsets are used to intimidate witnesses, plan escapes, conduct criminal operations from behind bars as well as — in less cinematic applications — keep in touch with loved ones. According to the Associated Press, officials at Florida's high- security Panhandle prison confiscated 4,200 cellphones last year.
"You can pick states all across the country and you'll see everything from hits being ordered on individuals to criminal enterprises being run from inside institutions with cellphones," head of Florida's Department of Corrections Michael Crews told the news agency.
Keeping phones out of prisons is proving surprisingly challenging; most are not smuggled in by visitors but by prison staff who, due to the practicalities and productivity sacrifices of effective screening, are able to get the devices inside and sell them at great profit.
What's more, once in a prison, there's little officials can do about cellphones: Jamming signals is prohibited under federal law, and it costs more than $1 million each for towers that control which govern which calls can go in and out of an institution.
One death row inmate in Texas managed to make several calls to Sen. John Whitmire, the influential senator who chairs the Criminal Justice Committee. Speaking of the prisoner, Whitmire told the Associated Press: "He held his phone out, I guess outside his cell and there was a very distinct prison noise. He said, 'Did you hear that?' and I said, 'Yup. That's a prison,' " Whitmire said. "I said, 'How'd you get that phone?' He said, 'I paid $2,100 for it.' I said, 'How do you keep it charged?' He said, 'I have a charger.' "
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