タグ別アーカイブ: Cellphone

This statement is released by the office of Attorney General Chris Carr.

Attorney General Chris Carr is pressing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take urgent measures to enable the use of cell phone jammers in state prisons and local jails. The FCC currently enforces a ban on cell phone signal jammers, a restriction that applies to state and local entities. Despite this, contraband cell phones are being used in correctional facilities across the nation to plan violent attacks and engage in other criminal activities, which presents a significant safety risk to correctional personnel, visitors, inmates, and the public.

Carr remarked that the easiest method to protect the public from the hazards of contraband cell phones is to permit the deployment of cell phone jamming technology in correctional institutions. However, he expressed concern that the FCC continues to hinder these efforts. He indicated that this obsolete guidance limits crucial law enforcement tools, poses risks to correctional officers, and allows for the expansion of criminal enterprises both inside and outside of prisons. He emphasized their resolve to combat violent crime in all settings, urging the federal government to remove this significant impediment to public safety.

In the year 2023, Georgia authorities confiscated 8,074 contraband cell phones, and in 2024, they have already seized 5,482. A recent case highlighted the misuse of such devices when an incarcerated leader of the “Yves Saint Laurent Squad” directed the stabbing of an 88-year-old veteran from Georgia via a contraband cell phone. Moreover, a gang leader from North Carolina successfully orchestrated the kidnapping of a prosecutor’s father from his prison cell using a cell phone. In California, prison gangs are reported to use contraband cell phones to facilitate both murders and drug trafficking within the correctional environment.

“There are hundreds of examples across the country of how contraband cell phones in the hands of inmates have been used as lethal weapons and enabled them to continue their criminal activities. We are outraged that these individuals are continuing these activities and endangering the public,” said Georgia Department of Corrections Commissioner Tyrone Oliver. “As attempts to infiltrate our prisons with contraband cell phones continue to evolve, access to jamming technology is critical to our ability to combat these attempts. We thank Attorney General Carr for his support of our ongoing commitment to public safety and safe prison operations.”

In his written communication, Carr remarked that the FCC’s policy is derived from a statute that was put into effect in the early 1990s, which predates the use of contraband cell phones by prison inmates to orchestrate and engage in unlawful and dangerous conduct.

Carr further stated that 47 USC § 333 does not impose any restrictions on the FCC regarding the modification of its policy to enable state agencies to employ cell phone jammers in prisons. In reality, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has acknowledged the potential effectiveness of cell phone jammers and has received authorization to use them in various federal prisons, including one in Georgia.

Corrections has quietly removed all cellphone jammers from prisons.

The technology, introduced in 2008-09 to prevent inmates using smuggled mobile phones, has cost more than $17 million.

But signal blocker have not been in use since June after being found to interfere with new prison guard safety systems.

When announcing their introduction, then Corrections Minister Phil Goff said cellphone blocking in New Zealand prisons was a major step forward that will stop prisoners committing further offences while behind bars.

Stuff recently obtained details under the Official Information Act about the number of cellphones seized from the 18 prisons run by Corrections over the past three years.

There were 626 cellphones and more than 750 cellphone-related items (such as batteries, chargers, SIM cards etc) found by Corrections staff between January 2023 and November this year.

When asked why inmates would be smuggling cellphones when the prison’s had the mobile signal jammer that should render them useless, Corrections chief custodial officer Neil Beales said the cellphone jammers were removed in June.

The jammers had been found to interfere with new safety systems such as Corrections officer safety alarms, he said.

Advances in cellular technology had also resulted in jammers becoming “increasingly obsolete”.

It was “only one of a number of tools used to stop cellphones being used in prisons” and a number of “more effective tools” remain in place, Beales said.

These include Cellsense devices, which detect a range of metals found in cellphones, alongside screening and x-ray capability as well as detection dogs.

“Some people in prison go to extreme and elaborate lengths to introduce contraband into prisons, and we are constantly working to stay one step ahead of new methods used to introduce contraband into our prisons,” Beale said.

Corrections was looking at new and emerging technology to complement systems already in place, he said, and had started introducing the use of full body imaging technology at a number of sites to detect contraband that has been concealed on or in a person’s body.

In 2018 Corrections admitted cellphone jamming technology created a communications blind spot near Rimutaka Prison, meaning residents of a child sex offender unit outside the wire could not be tracked on-site at the facility.

Cellphones could be used by inmates to put pressure on others outside the wire, or to co-ordinate drug deals, and other offending. In May this year nine prison staff at Rimutaka were suspended for alleged misconduct, including the smuggling of cellphones into the prison.

Drug and alcohol counsellor and criminologist Roger Brooking, who has been critical of the spending on jammers from the outset, said it was not surprising that Corrections had ditched the technology.

“They don’t work. They never have worked,” he said.

“What prisoners have told me is that they have always managed to find areas within the prisons where the jammer just doesn’t seem to operate. So prisoners have been able to continue making cellphone calls to conduct drug deals, talk to family or whatever.”