Cell phones plague prisons

A smuggled phone can fetch $500

Cigarettes, drugs and booze used to drive a prison's black market economy. Today, state prison officials are trying to stop another item from being smuggled in -- cell phones.

So far this year, the N.C. Department of Correction has confiscated roughly 140 cell phones that were found on inmates or stashed on prison grounds. The phones are considered contraband, but they are coming in anyway.

They arrive by visitors who sneak them in, by inmates returning from work release and, in some cases, by staff looking to make a fast buck. A $25 phone can sell for as much as $500 behind bars, prison officials say, and inmates who have them can charge others for their use.

Prisons director Boyd Bennett said the cell phones can be used for all kinds of mayhem in and out of prison. They can be used to set up attacks on inmates and staff, coordinate escapes, harass victims and allow criminals to continue running criminal enterprises outside prison.

In one case, North Carolina prison officials say, a gang leader in one prison used a cell phone to call inmates at another prison to give them the go-ahead to attack another inmate.

"He was a player in the gang hierarchy and he said, 'Yeah, go ahead and cut this guy,' " said Zack Kendall, an investigator who handles security issues with the Division of Prisons.

It's a growing problem nationally.

So far this year, South Carolina prison officials have confiscated more than 1,800 phones or components such as batteries and chargers, while Texas officials reported seizing more than 700 phones and components, including 20 phones from inmates on death row.

"We have had multiple escapes coordinated with cell phones," said Josh Gelinas, a spokesman for the S.C. Department of Corrections. "It's our biggest problem right now."

In Tennessee three years ago, an inmate used a cell phone to plot an escape that took the life of a correction officer. The inmate was later caught.

Phone-sniffing dog

In North Carolina, Bennett said his staff is trying to close off the cell phone pipeline with tighter checks of those entering and exiting prisons and by obtaining a 4-year-old chocolate lab named Sally, who is being trained to sniff them out. A component within cell phones produces a unique scent.

The department recently sent staffers to South Carolina to watch a demonstration of cell phone jamming technology. But that may not become an option until federal lawmakers change Federal Communications Commission rules that prevent the blocking of cell phone signals. South Carolina has asked federal authorities to make such a change.

Texas is holding a similar demonstration later this month.

"We believe the answer is to jam it, but the FCC of course is not seeing it our way," said John Moriarty, inspector general for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Bennett said he will also ask state lawmakers next year to provide a tool other states have -- a felony charge for those who smuggle cell phones in prison. He was less sure about creating a criminal possession charge for inmates caught in prison with the phones, saying that can be handled as an infraction subject to punishment.

"It's just another piece of the solution that we ought to have on the books in North Carolina," Bennett said.

Staffers disciplined

Prison officials began seeing cell phones in inmates' hands about four years ago. They have shown up in all levels of custody, though not on death row as in Texas. North Carolina prison officials didn't begin tracking the number of cell phones until this year. The department has roughly 40,000 inmates in 79 prisons.

In most cases, visitors or inmates on work release are bringing in the phones, Kendall said. He estimated at least a dozen were smuggled in by "eight or nine" staffers in several facilities. They've been dismissed. Ron Gillespie, the correction department's personnel director, could not provide specifics as to how many employees were fired because he said he doesn't keep track.

The department allows only staff to carry state-issued phones. Inmates have access to pay phones inside the prisons, but the calls are recorded. Access to the pay phones depends on the level of custody, with those in minimum security having more access and those in maximum security having the least.

Bennett said he is unaware of a case where a cell phone was used to plot an escape or an attack on staff. Kendall said several inmates were disciplined internally after the cutting incident, but investigators could not pin the hit on the gang leader because they did not find the cell phones. Interviews with other inmates led prison officials to believe it was a cell phone hit.

"These guys were separated by miles and miles and yet they were still able to reach out and do something," Kendall said.