SC Corrections Demonstrates Cell Phone Jammer

The South Carolina Department of Corrections demonstrated Friday that it can jam cell phone signals inside state prisons without blocking cell service for people outside. Now, it will ask the Federal Communications Commission for permission to conduct a longer term pilot program at the state's prisons.

Cell phones inside prisons are a huge problem. Corrections director Jon Ozmint says, "In South Carolina, they have coordinated escapes using cell phones. They've committed credit card fraud and right now are committing credit card fraud using cell phones. But across the country they've actually killed people using cell phones--put out hits on judges, prosecutors and witnesses."

Inmates get the cell phones by having friends put them inside footballs or taping them up and throwing them over prison fences. Once they have the phones, they can use them to coordinate the time and place to throw more contraband over the fences so the inmates can pick it up before corrections officers can.

Ozmint would like to use technology that can jam cell phone signals within the prisons, but the 1934 federal Communications Act prevents that. The cell phone industry's association is also opposing the use of jamming technology, saying it would disrupt the calls of people on the outside and radio calls of corrections officers inside.

To prove that's not true, Ozmint set up a demonstration with CellAntenna Corporation, which makes the briefcase-size jammer. Inside a building at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, the jamming equipment was turned on. The people who had been invited to witness the demonstration then checked their cell phones and they were not working. But while the jammer was still on, several others went just outside the building and were able to make a cell call.

Howard Melamed, CEO of CellAntenna, says the technology will not interfere with officers' radios or with anyone's cell phones outside the prison. "The energy from our jammer doesn't transmit past the wall. The walls stop it. And I will tell you that the just the air alone stops it from that distance. So there's absolutely no way that our low jamming signal, our very, very small amount of cushion, would ever make it through these walls into the local neighborhood," he says.

The wireless industry has suggested that South Carolina use different technology that would find cell phone signals within prisons. But Ozmint says that would cost up to $1 million per prison and wouldn't work as well, since the signal can be traced only when the cell phone is turned on. The jamming technology demonstrated at Lieber would cost about $100,000 per prison and wouldn't require extra manpower to conduct searches.

When asked why the wireless industry would be opposed to the jamming technology when it would not interfere with cell signals outside the prisons, Ozmint and Melamed said it was because of money. Inmates use disposable cell phones with prepaid minutes on them, and wireless providers charge much more for those prepaid minutes than they do for the minutes on a traditional wireless plan.