Cell phones in prison – worse than drugs!

The Dominican Attorney General, Radhamés Jiménez Peña last week said that they working on a project to block cell phone signals in prisons. Although (I’m assuming) cellphone usage is prohibited by inmates serving their time, it seems they get smuggled in on a regular basis.
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Apparently, many inmates in various prisons are making cellphone calls to blackmail and to coordinate other criminal activities. As you’d expect, few criminals use their time inside to reform their ways.
Suggestions that the attempted murder of lawyer Jordi Veras was set up from within the Rafey Men's Prison in Santiago using cellphones, according to a tape recording are likely to have encouraged this latest decision.
But if you think this is a problem unique to the Dominican Republic, think again. In California in 2008 more than 2,800 cell phones were confiscated from inmates. A prison staff member admitted to earning more than $100,000 that same year by selling cell phones to inmates.
It seems the problem is escalating, even as authorities try to combat the trade of cellphones within prisons.
Cellphones are potentially almost as valuable as drugs in prisons.
Apparently, in a recent sting operation in Texas, an undercover officer was offered $200 by a prisoner for a cell phone and just $50 for heroin. California officials say inmates will pay anywhere up to $1000 to obtain a smuggled cell phone. They didn’t indicate which network they preferred.
An inmate with a cellphone can then earn a good income by renting out his phone to other inmates.
In 2009, Texas Republican Congressman, Kevin Brady, introduced a House bill that would permit the jamming of cell-phone signals within prison walls, saying, "The problem has quickly gotten out of control nationwide.”
"Criminals are using cell phones even from death row to threaten victims and harass lawmakers. Inmates are making literally thousands of calls from prison."
Of course, some inmates use the phones to call family and friends, quite innocently. But evidence has been uncovered through wiretaps that show that cell phones within prisons have been used for a variety of illegal uses, such as orchestrating crimes, harassing witnesses, organizing retaliation against other inmates and even ordering hits.
Even the US has been slow to target the problem, with President Obama signing off a new law as recently as August 2010, prohibiting the use or possession of mobile phones and wireless devices, and calls for up to a year in prison for anyone found guilty of trying to smuggle one to an inmate.

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