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The future of the cell phone contraband battle

Editor’s note: This article is part of a Corrections1 Special Report on the 2009 Mock Prison Riot in Moundsville, W.V. You can check out the whole report (including exclusive articles and video content) by clicking here.

By Luke Whyte
Corrections1 editor

This photo shows a cellular telephone which was found in the intestines of a prisoner at a maximum security facility in El Salvador. (AP photo)

In 2006 in the Brazilian state of San Paulo, prison gangs coordinated a riot that spanned 71 facilities, involving 215 hostages and leading to the deaths of 32 COs.

The whole event was organized through the use of contraband cell phones.

Could a similar event ever be organized in the U.S.? It’s not likely, but it’s also not impossible.

Last year alone, more than 2,800 cell phones were confiscated from California prisons. That total is twice as high as the year before. In 2007, a Maryland inmate used a contraband cell phone to arrange the killing of a witness scheduled to testify against him. In 2008, a Texas death row inmate called a state senator from his cell and told him precisely where his daughters’ lived. The incident sparked a statewide prison lockdown.

“With enough phones and enough hands you can text message massive amounts of people at once,” says Bill Teel of Teel Technologies. “It would be very easy to direct a large group to act simultaneously with a simple push of a button.”

Given the scope and potential of this problem, the question now is how do we stop it from spinning out of control?

Mobile Device Forensics

Teel tackled this question at the Mobile Device Forensics workshop he hosted at the Mock Prison Riot in Moundsville, West Virginia on Monday, May 4th.

Mobile device forensics, or cell phone forensics, is the practice of pulling data (deleted or not) from cell phones for investigative purposes.

“70 percent of all European criminal cases involve cell phone forensics,” Teel said. “In Britain, the number is closer to 90 percent.”

Data extracted from a Blackberry helped prosecute the “craigslist killer” in NYC recently. In Iraq, where cell phones are often used to detonate IEDs, the military has been able to jam their signals and use cell phone forensics to extract data from the device and track it back to whoever was using it.

In prisons, cell phone forensics can be used to pinpoint contraband phone users, to track who they’ve been talking with and, potentially, to discover who smuggled in the phone or to stop new crimes before they occur.

Unfortunately, Teel admits, the contraband problem is probably too big for forensics alone.

The technology needed to develop a sophisticated mobile device forensics operation is extremely expensive — well beyond the budget of most facilities. Further, even if a facility could afford an operation, it’s only useful once a phone is found. It does nothing to help pinpoint where the ever-growing number of contraband phones are being hidden.

Forensics will likely be a part of the solution, but a more effective method is still needed.

(AP photo)

Jam it

One popular idea is cell phone signal jamming.

“This is the most effective way to stop communications,” Teel said. “It is probably the only way to completely stop it.”

Opponents of the jamming argument note that signals outside of a prison could inadvertently be jammed.

“The last thing you want to do is jam something like a hospital,” Teel said, “but just as telecommunications has evolved, so has jamming. There are a lot of places in the world that do use (jamming) and they have allowed the technology to evolve into directional and selective jamming.”

Modern technology, Teel said, allows precise boundaries to be set up around a signal jam. COs can then operate their phones on a different frequency.

The problem is that the FCC doesn’t allowing jamming, and although attempts have been (and are being) made to change this, it could be years before we see results, assuming we ever do.

Besides, there may be a better solution.

Meet the Cell Hound

At their booth in this year’s Mock Prison Riot, ITT’s Intelligence and Information Warfare Department was exhibiting an alternative to signal jamming.

“It works like a giant compass,” said ITT’s Terry Bittner, in reference to the Cell Hound, their new cell phone detection device. “When a call goes out, it points at the area where it came from.”

The Cell Hound works by using an array of sensors that listen for cell calls 24-7. When a call goes out the sensors pick it up, then they transmit the location of the phone to a map on a staff computer. The technology is so precise that officers can literally track the user as they walk around their cell.

“It’s an intelligence system,” Bittner said. “Officers almost always find other contraband in the user’s cell.

“Jamming is between 2X and 4X more expensive and you still have to search for contraband.”

The line of thought at ITT, Bittner said, is not focused on blocking or stopping the problem, but on how it can be turned around and used to a facilities advantage.

“What we are really trying to do is educate people in intelligence gathering and running more efficient facilities,” Bittner said

The Cell Hound has been in use for two and a half years at a handful of facilities with positive response. It’s not clear yet if it will provide a complete solution to the cell phone contraband issue.

In all likelihood, the full solution will involve a combination of forensics, jamming and detection systems like the Cell Hound.

“These phones are getting in just as much with officers as other ways,” Teel said. “This is a problem that has to be tackled on multiple fronts.”

The Corrections1.com team of editors and writers is committed to tracking down and reporting on the most important issues and interviews in the correctional field.

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