Contraband Cellphones Called Problem Defying Easy Solution
The threat from use of contraband cellphones in prisons is “deadly serious,” and finding a technical solution is a top FCC priority, Public Safety Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett said Thursday at a commission workshop on the topic. Wireless carriers, led by CTIA, used the forum to make the case that cellphone jamming is not the answer. But mostly those who testified described a problem that could elude easy solution.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
"Deaths have occurred because of inmates contracting for hits against witnesses, police officers and others,” Barnett said. “They continue to run criminal enterprises.” So Chairman Julius Genachowski has made “finding technological solutions a top priority -- solutions that are available immediately,” he said.
Barnett said he recently witnessed a demonstration of “inmate call capture” technology installed at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The demonstration was a success, he said. “Over 216,000 contraband cell call attempts were captured and kept from connecting in the first month alone,” Barnett said. “State corrections officials demonstrated how several call attempts by inmates using cell phones with unauthorized numbers were blocked from ringing through to their intended destination. In fact, no one could reach me on my cell for a few hours, and when I tried to make a call it would not go through while inside the prison."
Jon Ozmint, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said cell-signal jamming technology should be part of the discussion. “I've got one prison, by the way, that’s one mile away from any property line. … Now I guarantee you will not have any bleed out there. We're testing managed access. Our frustration has simply been over this question: Why are we not testing jamming?"
Jack Fox, chief of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Office of Security Technology, said the agency has not tested managed-access technology or jamming but is testing a detection system at a federal prison in Atlanta. The technology “is very accurate” in pinpointing cellphones, Fox said. “The problem is, like most technologies, it is expensive.”
Nancy Merritt, senior policy adviser at the National Institute of Justice, said cellphones in prison must be viewed as part of a larger problem. “Cellphones are contraband,” and if they are getting into prisons, so is other contraband, Merritt said. “We need to find out how it’s going in,” she said. “What are the policies and procedures that are allowing it to get in. We need to look much more broadly.” People like “cool technology,” she said, but “we need to get back to the basics."
Much of the discussion focused on cell signal jamming. Jerry Bender, director of security technology at ITT, said the company is the leading seller of jamming technology in the U.S. and the technique can’t be used safely in prisons. “We just don’t believe that the particular technology can be controlled precisely enough … because there are to many environmental factors associated with that technology,” Bender said. “I personally think we're headed down a dangerous path.”
CTIA Vice President Chris Guttman-McCabe reiterated his group’s opposition to cell signal jamming. “There’s a flat-out law” against jamming, he said. Tough penalties for smuggling phones into prisons has to be part of the answer, he added. “If someone makes $30,000 a year and gets $1,000 for a phone, and the downside is they may get” service “terminated, where’s the balance?” he asked. “If you're facing a year for each continuing element and $5,000 fine … I think that changes the dynamics of providing that phone.” Guttman-McCabe said carriers have been “proactive” rather than “reactive,” holding a meeting earlier this year among members and technology companies that offer an alternative to jamming.
There’s no simple answer, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. “Cellphones today are smart,” he said. “They operate in multiple frequency bands and they're going to be able to operate in more. Radio … doesn’t quite follow man’s laws. It follows physics’ laws.” Some commercial bands are adjacent to public safety bands, and protecting public safety operations while jamming commercial calls would be difficult, Knapp said. “It doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It just means that it’s really hard.”
A statement by the Associaton of Public-Safety Communications Officials called cellphone use in prison a “serious problem” that can endanger the safety of corrections officials and the public. The group stopped short of opposing jamming outright. “As consideration is given to provisions for radio frequency jamming equipment to be deployed in correctional facilities in the United States, we strongly urge Congress and the FCC to require that vendors of such devices demonstrate that use of such equipment will have no harmful impact on public safety radio systems,” APCO said.
Michael Marcus, a consultant and former FCC official, said most cellphones confiscated are anonymous, prepaid phones. In industrialized countries, people have to provide identification to buy a phone. “One of the major prepaid cellphone companies even gives you the option of making up a false name,” Marcus said.