Cell phones in prison are an issue, but they could be a symptom of other isolation problems that … [+]
When you confer with men and ladies who’ve been in prison, they learn that they long to have a mobile phone once they’re inside, which is not allowed in federal prisons. They feel imaginary vibrations of their pockets from a mobile phone that won’t there. They miss contact with their family and friends. They’re much more cut off from society. Loved ones they used to repeatedly text or call appear to have disappeared. Instant access to calls, emails, and knowledge is gone. Understandably, it takes some time to get used to. But access to cell phones is instantly available, especially in minimum- or low-security prisons.
Illegal mobile phone use by federal prisoners is an ongoing problem. Prisoners will not be allowed to make use of cell phones and must as an alternative make calls over monitored phone lines, with usage limited to 500 minutes/month and individual calls limited to quarter-hour. During these calls, all of that are monitored and recorded, a recorded message plays stating, “This call is from a federal prison.” Although many facilities have tablets, they will not be connected to the Internet and serve primarily as storage for games, movies, programs, and reading materials. In short, prisoners are cut off from the skin world.
However, the illegality of cell phones has not stopped prisoners from using them, despite the penalties. Just a few years ago, an inmate found with a mobile phone was placed in a special housing unit (SHU) for a time frame, transferred to a different prison, and lost as much as 41 days of time for good behavior, which increased the prison sentence. In fact, the punishment is so severe that it is taken into account a level 100 disciplinary offense, on a par with assaulting one other prisoner.
When a prisoner is found with a phone, it’s routinely sent to the FBI to discover the people involved, be sure that nothing sinister was involved, and see who was called. But the influx of cellphones into prisons is so great that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is so overwhelmed that it rarely sends someone to the SHU, deducts 41 days of excellent behavior, after which calls it a day. No transfer, no SHU, and no FBI scan of the phones, which, a BOP corrections officer told me, are piling up in a secure area. Laughing on the magnitude of the issue, he told me, “We used to consider these confiscated phones as evidence, but some corrupt corrections officers consider them inventory that they resell to inmates.”
In the past, there have been dangers related to mobile phones. In 2015 nine prisoners were charged with using a mobile phone to rearrange the ambush killing of BOP officer Lt. Osvaldo Albarati. Recently, Senator Jon Ossoff Legislation introduced to crack down on mobile phone use. The BOP is all the time concerned about security, and cell phones pose an unusual risk when used to coordinate criminal activities starting from prison drug deliveries to murders of rivals.
So how do prisoners get their hands on cell phones? Drones throw them into prison yards, visitors bring them into visiting rooms and corrupt prison guards sell them to prisoners at a high price. An inmate can purchase a mobile phone for as much as $3,000 and to cover costs, many are rented to other prisoners for $100 to $200 an hour, a price determined largely by the variety of phones within the prison. When mobile phone ownership is high amongst the final population, prices drop. After a search of the premises and confiscation of the cell phones, the remaining phones are offered on the market at a high price. The person caught with the mobile phone, thus removing it from the premises’ inventory, must pay for the alternative phone, a burden often passed on to a member of the family who must arrange payment and delivery of an illegal phone. It’s a cycle that repeats itself within the booming prison mobile phone economy.
The risk of owning and using a mobile phone is an issue for a lot of inmates in prison, but it is usually a symptom of other problems in prison. It raises the query of why inmates would take the extraordinary risk of owning a mobile phone. Federal prisoners are subject to solitary confinement in prison, which implies they’re locked of their cells and will not be allowed to make use of approved technique of communication reminiscent of monitored calls and email (Corrlinks, the prison’s email system, tracks and reads email). Solitary confinement is imposed as a result of staff shortages or unrest within the prison. Some of this solitary confinement can last for days, weeks, or months. During solitary confinement, there isn’t a television, no telephone, no email, and no visitors. In this isolation, inmates crave communication with the skin world, to confer with family, to listen to news, and to entertain themselves within the confines of prison. Cell phones provide a method of escape from prison.
Lawyers are sometimes undecided about whether to take a call from a client who’s using a mobile phone. On a recent National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) mailing list, lawyers asked one another whether or not they should take a call or text message from a prisoner. The consensus was that such communication is unethical and ought to be prohibited. However, many reflected on the necessity to communicate with a client when access to legal visits is proscribed and obtaining information for a case in a timely manner is a top priority. While I understand that lawyers indicate they don’t take such calls, I actually know several who’ve done so.
Many minimum security inmates pay the results for using a mobile phone, but many tell me the chance is value their mental health. I’ve spoken to those that have left prison concerning the situation with cell phones, and so they tell me that phones are so common that individuals often let their guard down because they think they’re allowed. The ability to get photos and videos of family and simply get information from the web is vital to prisoners. In 2021, USP Atlanta confiscated 800 cell phones from over 1,500 inmates… so one in two inmates had a phone. The BOP now uses encryption devices to dam calls, something the The Federal Communications Commission has objected This technology shouldn’t be yet used BOP-wide.
The problem for the BOP shouldn’t be yet that big, since the penalties for these cell phones add 41 days to the prisoner’s sentence, which adds 41 days of jail costs. At $120 per day (a known average for the BOP), that adds $4,920 to the jail costs for a single prisoner. There are actually hundreds of mobile phone violations, which brings the fee of an extra sentence alone to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The BOP staff shortage have a ripple effect throughout institutions. Prisoners are locked down, programming is proscribed, and we’re a society hooked on cell phones. This creates an environment where prisoners, already under the stress of incarceration, risk additional prison time simply to find a way to speak more with a loved one, check on the status of their case, or study issues like prisoners’ rights under the First Step Act. And then there’s the desperation of prison. One prisoner who told me he used a mobile phone while incarcerated said, “It allowed me to talk to my young children without them constantly hearing that the call was from prison,” adding, “You can’t put a time limit on a phone call when your children miss you.”
The BOP should address the underlying causes of mobile phone use to take a positive first step toward eliminating such use in prisons.
