By Alan Mauldin
The Moultrie Observer
MOULTRIE, Ga. — It’s no surprise to Billy Howell that inmates can get cell phones and that prison employees were involved as couriers in their acquisition.
The surprise for the public may be the extent of the allegations turned up in a joint state-federal investigation. The Georgia Department of Corrections said that phones were used at Autry State Prison to run scams in which inmates posed as law enforcement officers and used threats of arrest to get victims to wire money to prisoners’ private accounts. Click here to read that story.
Prisoners willing to pay $400 for a phone that can be purchased on the streets for $20 are not using them to stay in touch with family, said Howell, warden at Colquitt County Correctional Institution since 2002.
“It’s a bigger thing than a single inmate sitting in a cell calling his mama or girlfriend,” he said. “It’s just as dangerous as an inmate having a knife.”
Prisoners can use phones to continue running a drug operation from inside a prison. They can even use them to set up a “hit” — murder — on the outside or to intimidate witnesses in a criminal case, Howell said.
Federal indictments unsealed this week named 54 individuals accused in providing phones and using them to continue committing crimes while in prison. They included four employees who were terminated on Thursday, including one from the Doerun area, Jokelra Copeland, from the minimum security Autry State Prison, which houses up to 1,700 inmates.
Howell said the topic of phones in cells is discussed among wardens at the state and national levels. All know that phones are inevitably going to get in and agree that they are a major problem.
And, invariably, some prison employees will be tempted by turning five phones purchased for $100 into as much as $2,000 in a day’s time.
“The majority of law enforcement are good, honest people,” he said. “You’ve always got a handful of people, no matter where they’re at, they’re going to (go for the money). In reality this is a big deal. It’s a big business.”
Some gangs, for example, recruit people who can get jobs in prisons for the sole purpose of ferrying in contraband for their members, he said.
Howell said he is encouraged to see federal investigators involved.
“You’ve got to have the resources to investigate it and prosecute it,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to prove it before you accuse a staff member of being involved.”
It’s not that Colquitt County correctional officers aren’t doing their own investigations, he said. It’s a constant battle, but one that will never end as long as there are cell phones.
“We have found as many as 18 cell phones at one time in the prison,” Howell said of his own institution, which contracts with the state Corrections Department to house up to 190 prisoners, meaning a phone for nearly every 10 inmates found during that shakedown.
“I’m glad to see they’re pushing it, and they’re pushing it into federal courts,” Howell said.
Copyright 2016 The Moultrie Observer