Cellphones, Though Banned, Thrive in U.S. Prisons | Hacker News Reader

Cellphones, Though Banned, Thrive in U.S. Prisons

nytimes.com

46 pointsJ3L240429 comments

One of the factors that created this market is the unreasonable phone systems currently in place at correctional facilities. They are excessively overpriced and that cost is largely passed on to friends/family on the outside. In the long run it's actually cheaper to buy one of these expensive contraband cell phones and add money to them as needed.

Some people complain that inmates shouldn't be allowed to call anyone, but it's by maintaining these social connections to the outside world that gives them a greater chance of rehabilitation. You keep chipping away at their threads of humanity and you will create some very broken men; who will eventually share that street with you one day.

Prisons do often leave prisoners more likely to commit crime than they were before they were incarcerated (there was a great article on The Atlantic last year on how ankle monitors are changing this, by keeping many non-violent prisoners from ever entering prison).

However, allowing cellphone usage inside of a prison allows many convicts to run criminal networks from inside of prison walls. This makes it difficult for law enforcement to make a dent in organized crime, as incarcerating a gang's leaders doesn't prevent them from organizing further criminal activity.

Non-violent criminals could arguably be given cell phones, but the potential for violent criminals to organize violent crime means that allowing violent criminals to use cell phones in prison is a dangerous proposition.

It doesn't necessarily have to be cellphones. The reason they are so popular in prison is because of the outlandish fees to make a collect call, and in some cases, those phones are monitored. If you're choices are a collect call with $5 connection fee and $2/min and a $300 cellphone loaded with hours of calltime than it doesn't take a genius to see that the cellphone is going to win whether its for the mob boss or incarcerated shoplifter.

A sensible middle ground would be to make collect calls affordable, or even free from a selected list, so that cost works against smuggling in cellphones. Until then, people are going to find more elaborate ways to reach outside. And they've got lots of time on their hands to do it.

I agree entirely. In many cases it's reinforcing a prisoner's connection with society that reduces their chances of re-offending. A recent study in the UK showed that simply ensuring inmates in a prison had a bank account cut re-offending rates by a third!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-11008453

For me, this highlights the mix of factors leading people towards criminality. I wonder what other things we take for granted we could use to help inmates.

If there was a pill with similar effects, you bet that everybody would be forced to take it.

The solution, Mr. Ozmint and others say, is to simply jam cellphone signals in prisons.

That may solve that one problem, however the article glosses over a much larger problem -- the inmate bought his phone from a prison guard. There is evidently corruption inside the system and as a result there's no telling what else that guard (or guards) are transporting into the prison for inmates.

I heard it said once that "You can get anything on the inside that you can get on the outside -- except a woman". (This was in an article/interview about rampant drug use inside prisons.)

In a sane prison system, they'd probably support having inmates playing Farmville rather than other things they could be doing. Sure, they could theoretically be doing drug deals or other criminal enterprises, but the Gotti-types already do that type of thing, and 99% of people in jail just aren't important enough for that.

But politicians get elected and "prison contractors" get rich by making prison conditions worse and less effective.

If prison conditions are too good then prison becomes less of a punishment. Not to start a ideological argument here but there is a case to be made for prison to be unattractive, especially for people who would like to play farmville all day.

"It is impossible to have enough staff to watch the two million people we have locked up in the country at this time,” he said. “In a perfect world, yes, we would find all the phones. But this isn’t a perfect world."

Yes, but wouldn't these cellphones be perfect targets for DoD developed Electronic intelligence equipment? We should be able to localize cellphones within prison and kill access from the phone's MAC address. Better yet, the authorities could get a warrant (since the cellphone within prison boundaries is a Federal offense now) and start monitoring the communications.

I'd rather the Homeland Security folks would spend multi-millions on such a program instead of spending it on Rapiscan.

re: "We should be able to localize cellphones within prison and kill access from the phone's MAC address."

If you read through to the end of the article, you'll learn that Mississippi has implemented an interception system that achieves that kind of result.

I'd rather there not be 2 million people locked up in prison. Placing a significant drain on society and only becoming stronger criminals.

But in a perfect world the punishment would fit the crime instead of the insanity in the current criminal court process.

"Almost everybody has a phone" (from prisoner in article)

If that is true, then the guards are participating either actively in giving over the phones or passively by ignoring the phones.

There are handguns as small as a cellphone and you don't see "everyone has a handgun" in prison. So work that one backwards.

Guards must think there is no harm so they ignore, or they are paid off somehow.

Fire all the guards, get new guards or switch them from another prison to get rid of their payoff familiars.

Guards won't give prisoners guns because that would present a real and direct threat to themselves. Is the difference between prisoners having guns and prisoners having access to telephones really that blurred to you?

Hence my point, it's the guards participating, they are breaking laws and should be prosecuted.

Put a few guards behind bars and maybe the others will stop allowing cellphones?

You'd think seeing how horrible prison is would encourage the guards to follow the law themselves.

I have a feeling they don't really think of themselves as ever being on the other side of the bars. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't if I had a job like that.

> Put a few guards behind bars and maybe the others will stop allowing cellphones? > > You'd think seeing how horrible prison is would encourage the guards to follow the law themselves.

It didn't work for the prisoners (many of whom are return customers), why would it work for the guards?

If they can't keep phones away from prisoners--a population that has been legally stripped of many of the freedoms and protections that we on the outside enjoy, how can they expect us to believe that they can keep bombs off of airplanes?

The prison population is less than the number of people that fly in two days, so the TSA has a much bigger population to deal with, and the TSA doesn't have 24/7 access to flyers, nor the right or ability to control who they talk to, and so on.

This great documentary by Vanguard makes it clear that a lot of cellphone smuggling is actually done by visitors and prisoners using body cavities: http://www.hulu.com/watch/109763/vanguard-prison-contraband

It's not just guard bribes that are the problem... as long as the incentive exists to smuggle items in, people will do so (both guards and visitors). Managed Access (as in Mississippi) would kill that incentive, which would eliminate the smuggling (of cell phones, at least).

If everyone agrees that cell phones in prisons are a bad thing, when why not use jammers to stop the signal? A small cell phone jammer can be gotten for ~$130, and it probably wouldn't take many to blanket a prison. This would lead to issues with communication between the inside and outside, of course, but a mixture of land lines and VOIP would make it pretty easy for guards to continue as normal.

That doesn't address the problem if contraband is still coming in.

From the article, at least some people think it won't work: “It’s illegal, plain and simple,” said Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association. He cited the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits the blocking of radio signals — or, in this case, cellphone signals — from authorized users.

The problem with this argument is that prisons are a different place legally than the rest of the world. In addition to the the limited rights of the prisoners, they also impose limited rights on the people working there. If the prison authorities and whatever legislature has authority over the prison decide that there are no "authorized users" within a prison then there is no violation of the act.

Wouldn't that also block the employee's cell phones?

My reading of the article was that it's illegal for anyone (including guards etc) to possess cellphones within the prison.

How do they charge them?

They've probably got the self-charging models.

There are too many people in US Prisons, that's why they can't keep tabs on everyone.

I think allowing all inmates to have cell phones and having a system to monitor all of their calls to stay in contact with those who can help them re-integrate with society is a terrific idea.

However it will never work because the smartest criminals will use it to escape, terrorize with gangs out the outside, coordinate drug inflow and all sorts of other problems. The prison barely has enough staff to keep the place under control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com