Cell Phone Crackdown in Tennessee Prisons Points to Larger Problem

October 17, 2010 (Press-News.org) A recent story in The Tennessean discusses a crackdown by prison authorities on the presence of cell phones in state prisons. They have been successful in using dogs to sniff out the phones, as apparently the batteries give off an odor the dogs can detect.

Cell phones are prohibited for prisoners, as they provide an easy means for them to keep in contact with the outside. They also present a safety threat to correctional officers in prisons. The shooting of Officer Mark Chestnut on I-40 was the result of a prison escape facilitated by a cell phone.

Prison authorities have confiscated over 1,600 cell phones in the past year in Tennessee prisons. While some of the phones are smuggled in, as one official notes by creatively hiding them in certain parts of a body and others have been tossed over the fences of prisons, the more frequent method is for prison guards to bring them in.

There have been other, high-tech solutions offered for the problem. At least two companies, some with intelligence and defense experience, have built tools for "sniffing out" the cell phones. EDO corp. built a detector for the Federal Bureau of Prisons that produced surprising results.

They discovered that prisons were rife with cell phone use, and as one of the representatives of EDO described it: "The maximum-security section looked like a telemarketing center." He said one could tell when the cheaper evening rates kicked in and that weekends were especially busy.

The "Free Market" in Prison

The problem is widespread, affecting prison across the nation, not just Tennessee. An NPR story reports the warden of a Texas prison receiving a call from the mother on an inmate, who was calling to complain about the poor reception he had when calling from prison. A state senator in Maryland received a call from an inmate on a cell phone making general complaints about the prison system.

A significant number, if not the majority, of the smuggled phones are brought in by corrections officers, who then supply them to the inmates. Because of the extensive use of metal detectors, guards are the only reliable method to bring them inside the prison. In New Jersey, an inmate reports the phones can be had for $500 payment to a guard.

The corruption within the system will make solving the problem difficult. While the majority of the phones are used by the inmates for communication with their family, they have been used to run gangs outside of prison, for drug smuggling, even for trading gold on international markets.

The corruption affects the entire system, leaving inmates at the mercy of guards who are dishonest, or worse. In one case from Maryland, an inmate has accused a correctional officer of being a member of the Bloods gang, and after an argument with the officer, his cell was left unlocked, leaving him open to attack by other gang members in the prison that resulted in 32 stab wounds.

This has led to a federal civil rights case on behalf of the inmate. If you have suffered the adverse affects of prison corruption, speak with an experienced criminal defense attorney, who can review the facts of your situation and advise you of the potential for a case.

Article provided by Law Office of Brent Horst
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