THE ISSUE: Cell phones in prison

OUR OPINION: Jamming cell signals in prisons necessary

South Carolina Corrections Department Director Jon Ozmint is accustomed to keeping people in cells. His focus in the past year, however, has been keeping inmates away from cells and cells outside prison walls — cell phones that is.

Twenty-five other states, the Philadelphia Prison System and D.C. Department of Corrections have signed Ozmint’s S.C. Department of Corrections’ petition that asks the Federal Communications Commission for permission to jam cell phone signals in prisons.

The petition was drafted with assistance from Michael Marcus, former associate chief for technology at the FCC. It explains in technical terms how jamming can be carried out in prisons without interfering with any cell phone signals off prison property.

Already, the S.C. Department of Corrections has hosted a successful demonstration of cell phone jamming technology. Members of the media and corrections professionals from around the country saw that surgical jamming technology works: Phones inside a prison facility were rendered useless with no interference to phones outside of the facility or to law enforcement radios.

Jamming cell phone signals is outlawed by the federal Communications Act of 1934, a statute that fails to account for technological advances that make surgical signal-blocking possible. Federal law enforcement agencies are exempt from the act’s prohibition.

Prisons, jails and detention centers need the same latitude. Incarcerated convicts are using smuggled cell phones to threaten and kill witnesses, deal drugs and continue other criminal enterprises from behind bars. While cell phone detection devices and search dogs are helpful, they are more expensive and less effective than jamming. They require too much manpower and cover too little ground to effectively stop inmates in large prisons from using cell phones.

Critics of cell phone jamming in the wireless industry have said they want to work with prison officials to solve the problem. The S.C. petition addresses the industry’s concerns with signal interference outside prisons and includes mechanisms to measure and prevent signal disruption.

“Prison systems from every corner of this country, from Georgia to New York to California to South Dakota, have signed this petition,” Ozmint said. “These are the people who understand prison best and who realize just how dangerous it is for an inmate to possess a cell phone. We hope that the FCC will take appropriate action to allow prisons to jam cell phones. But if not, we expect that Congress will eventually take such action. We only hope that they will do so before more innocent lives are lost.”

South Carolina U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint and Congressman Gresham Barrett are among those in Congress behind legislation to allow jamming. Ozmint reminds leaders and citizens alike that cell phones in the hands of prisoners are dangerous.

He bluntly makes the case for rendering the devices useless in prisons: “Anywhere there is a cell phone in a prison in this country, I can promise you there is a crime going on.”

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