Contraband Cell Phones in Prison – Problem or an Opportunity?
Written by kelly.solid Tuesday, 17 May 2011 06:57
Contraband cell phones in correctional institutions are at an all time high. A recent article in Business Week states ”although there are no nationwide statistics, in California alone more than 10,000 contraband phones were confiscated from inmates in 2010, up from 1,400 in 2007. In Mississippi, authorities grabbed more than 4,000 handsets from prisoners last year, up 43 percent from 2009.” The article goes on to state, ”Illegal cell phones are probably the largest public-safety risk prisons are facing nationally,” says Terri McDonald, chief deputy secretary of California’s Corrections and Rehabilitation Dept. The risks arise from the inmates using the phones to run outside criminal activity from prison, intimidate witnesses, coordinate escapes and order retaliation against other prisoners.
This problem has caused the correctional industry to look hard at cell jamming and finder techniques to limit the infiltration of the cell phone contraband. Realizing that this is really a huge problem, it can be an opportunity as well. An opportunity – you say – how does that make any sense?
Trying to think outside of the box, lets look at some of the advantages of a cell phone in an inmate’s hand. A contraband cell phone gives law enforcement something that they are not afforded (as readily) through the inmate use of a “secret” cell phone. An inmate with a cell phone is now “free” to make calls and speak freely. They are more apt to contact individuals that would not normally contact to facilitate activities that they would not dare do on the recorded prison calls. When a phone is then confiscated, and the cell forensics data is retrieved through the use of a Cellebrite UFED or SecureView device, we now have a full and open profile of the inmate. We can not a only see who he talked to and text-messaged, we can bounce that against other inmates to look for collaborations on the outside and common contacts.
Analysis of this type can be readily done using techniques in Excel – looking for correlations or other software products on the market such as THREADS - that specifically analyzes inmate phone CDRs (call detail records) and cell forensics to provide calls and callers of interest.
