Blocking cell phones in our state prisons

While cell phones are used almost everywhere these days, the last place they belong is in an actual cell. Unfortunately, they are common there as well, posing a serious threat to public safety.

South Carolina and a number of other states have tried for years to get permission from the federal government to use cell phone blocking technology to prevent inmates from communicating with people outside prison walls. Currently, however, the Federal Communications Commission bans the use of any blocking devices around prisons.

In a letter sent to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler last week, the Association of State Correctional Administrators asked the agency to take another look at its regulations that bar state prisons from using cell-phone blocking devices. S.C. prisons director Bryan Stirling was among those who signed the letter.

FCC officials say the technologies designed to prevent contraband cellphone use are expensive and not 100 percent effective. And that, no doubt, is true.

Blocking systems can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some also worry that the devices might interfere with phone use by residents living near prisons.

FCC officials also argue that if phones are blocked, correctional officers would be unable to use their phones to call for help in an emergency. But Stirling recently pointed out that in South Carolina, guards are not allowed to carry their cellphones during working hours.

State prison officials have long wrestled with the problem of contraband cell phones. The phones are small and easy to smuggle into prisons, and easy to hide once inside.

The phones now are used as a new form of cash behind bars. More ominously, they often are used to plan escapes, order shipments of drugs to prisoners or to threaten people on the outside.

The S.C. Department of Corrections now is considering a system that helps guards find unauthorized cell phones within the state’s prisons. But that system, at $1.4 million, is more expensive and less effective than other systems that simply block phone calls.

The FCC’s argument that blocking systems are too expensive and not 100 percent effective is unconvincing. Let states decide if they want to spend the money on these systems. And even if they don’t block every phone call, they still represent the best technology available to control the use of cell phones by inmates.

As long as it can be demonstrated that the technology doesn’t interfere with cell phone use outside the prisons, South Carolina and other states should be allowed to use blocking systems to prevent the use of contraband phones and make prisons safer for all.

This story was originally published December 11, 2016 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Blocking cell phones in our state prisons."