I was listening to the news and they had a story on a woman who was abused by a man and she had him put inside prison. Now he’s using a smart phone to harass her.
He was threatening her, sending pictures of himself and all sorts of things like this?
OK I don’t get how this happens? Are the prisoners not searched? It should be pretty easy to trace where a cell phone call comes from or a text or picture is sent via a phone shouldn’t it?
I guess the FCC wouldn’t allow a devise to block cell phone signals. I don’t know if the guards use them to communicate.
Seems a bit odd though, since the news says it’s become a big problem in Illinois prisons. Of course maybe the news, WBBM, is exaggerating
I understand that one method used to smuggling them into prison and hiding them from searches is a classic; inserting it up the rectum. Just Google “cell phone” and “rectum” and there’s plenty of stories about the practice.
One of the major sources of inmates getting cell phones is by having staff smuggle them in.
Staff get compromised, staff get blackmailed, staff get corrupted and do things for money and other favors.
Where I work (maximum security prison), it is a serious violation for a staffer to even bring a cell phone into the facility, and it can result in discipline, suspension, termination and even prosecution (generally reserved for intentionally providing an inmate with the cell phone or other contraband.)
Visitors are another common source of cell phones getting into inmate hands, smuggling in phones rectally or vaginally, or inside baby’s diapers, inside prosthetic limbs, inside surgically created or modified orifices, etc.
It’s challenging and time-consuming to control what comes into and goes out a prison, and ingenious schemes abound. One inmate stored his contraband cellphone in his colostomy (not the bag, but the actual hole.) Another had an abscess pocket he never let heal so he could store stuff there (not a cell phone, IIRC.)
As others have said, the most common way a cell phone is smuggled in is via an employee. They come in and out with minimal security checks and many employees have ready access to prisoners.
We don’t use cell phones in prison (we use walkie-talkies). Cell phones are serious contraband (at least in NY where I worked). It’s one of the few things that will get you automatically fired.
If staff aren’t allowed to use cellphones, can’t a prison just jam the signals? If there are reasons they can’t do that, can’t they have equipment that would indicate the presence of a working cellphone?
It seems like some kind of technological fix should be possible.
Depends upon the security rating of the prison, at some places they are thrown over the fence in packages, along with drugs, and the prisoners hope to retrieve them before the staff do - we intercept a number of them this way.
They can be detected through signals so usage is carefully timed.
I am aware of a couple of staff who were bringing them in, and have been caught - so it does happen. We had one prisoner who was using his dreadlocks to hide his mobile phone.
There are many legitimate suppliers of goods into prisons, its quite possible to find a “once in a while route” using, for example, a loaf of bread which is part of a large consignment loaves.
I don’t understand why we don’t use technology ot solve the problem, by using various jamming devices or other electronic counter-measures. Make the phones useless and then no problem at all.
Can they jam a prison without jamming other locations nearby? I’m certainly no expert, but I assume that a jamming broadcast would have to rival the cell towers in power and therefore have a similar range.
I don’t know the technology but this would be my guess. Attica Correctional Facility, for example, is located in the village of Attica. I’m assuming they would not be happy if the prison started jamming their cell phones.
See **The Shawshank Redemtion **for how this works.
Prisoners have networks. They will have relationships with people who are prison suppliers. They pay them for the stuff and get it smuggled in with the regular deliveries. Sometimes a guard is bribed to look the other way when this is happening.
Most of the receiving\stocking are regular jobs done by inmates.
You can get just about anything in prison if you are willing\able to pay.
I just read a story about a Lancaster, SC woman trying to mail a cell phone (plus drugs and a weapon) in a hollowed-out Bible. Resisted the urge to comment about the oldest trick in the book…
I watched a show not long ago and part of it focused on the different things prisoners smuggled in rectally. The prison in question had a gigantic collection of things, including scores of cell phones and even knives :eek:.
By the way, how do they recharge them? (The cell phones, I mean.)
Jamming cell phones is illegal, plus you could jam the phones of people who aren’t in the prison but who are driving by or live nearby, etc.
One method I have heard of (aside from the major one, guard complicity) is people filling things like footballs with cell phones and throwing them over the wall. Henry Hill talked about that method being used to smuggle in drugs in his book when he was in prison too (filling tennis balls with drugs and throwing them over the wall).
I once read about a football that had a huge number of phones and chargers stuffed into it. Something like 20+.
I posted somewhere here about a prisoner here in Thailand who got caught smuggling in a cellphone or two when his butt started ringing as he was being processed in. Really. One jail warden said the problem is so bad that he regularly makes new prisoners jump up and down to try and shake them out.