By C1 Staff
RALEIGH, N.C. — Two bills recently passed by the North Carolina Senate judiciary committee hope to deter inmates with cell phones and to protect those who come into contact with them.
The News Observer reports that Senate bill 78 will allow non-elected public officials to have their addresses removed from any government website. This would protect the privacy of law enforcement officials, including criminal magistrates, prosecutors, U.S. attorneys or assistant attorneys, federal judges and any local, state or federal law enforcement officers.
Senate bill 594 would increase the penalty for supplying inmates with cell phones, as well as increase the penalty for possession of a cell phone by an inmate. Offenses were changed, in the original language of the bill, from class 1 misdemeanors, resulting in 1-45 days incarceration for first time offenders, to class F felonies, which has a sentence of 10-41 months in prison.
Later the penalty was lowered to a class H felony, which has a sentence of 4-25 months, matching the penalty for giving an inmate a weapon.
That part of the bill would cost an additional $3 million to account for additional beds needed to support an influx of prisoners.
Both bills are linked to the kidnapping of a Wake County prosecutor’s father. Colleen Janssen’s father was kidnapped in April after an inmate found his address online.