February 2, 2005
Convicts grumble as cops steal their 'luxury'
Deprived of their flat-screen televisions, cellphones, pizza deliveries and long visits from lovers, inmates at Mexico's top security prison complained on Monday they are being treated "like dogs", reports IOL.
"On Monday, they paid for a full-page advertisement in Mexico's top daily Reforma and called on President Vicente Fox to respect their human rights. They also want the right to buy the soft drinks of their choice from the jail's small store.
Over the past month, Fox has sent troops into prisons across Mexico, including La Palma. In cell-by-cell searches, soldiers have stripped inmates of their illegal luxuries. Conjugal visits have been halted too.
High-profile jailed drug lords have been switched to other prisons to break up their in-jail rackets and to make it more difficult to run their cartels from behind bars."
Related articles from around the world on inmates and cell phones:
-- Feds probe jail phone incident in Hammond (Indiana) - Federal officials are investigating how a smuggled cell phone got into the hands of a federal inmate housed at the Hammond City Jail in the past month.
--Norway: Cell phone ban in jails proposed - The Norwegian government wants to ban all use of cell phones in Norwegian jails because of reports stating that cell phones are used to plan escapes
-- Phones in prisons a widespread problem in Mexico Homesick inmates aren't just calling home. They are coordinating armed robberies, drug deals and kidnappings, authorities say.
-- Prison Cells - Recently, prison officials, aware of one inmate's illegal phone, allowed him to make calls so that they could monitor his activities. Once they were ready to seize the phone, however, the inmate flushed it down the toilet.
-- The newest prison contraband: cellphones - Cellphones are becoming the newest form of coveted contraband, allowing inmates to communicate freely with the outside world and, at times, conduct illicit activity from behind bars.
-- Cell phones becoming one of most prized contraband items - Cell phones have joined the ranks of the most prized illicit commodities inside Texas prison cells
-- Crossed signals over jail mobile phone jamming - The New South Wales Government has accused the Federal Government of blocking a trial of mobile phone jamming in the State's jails
-- Prisoners shown smoking drugs and using mobiles - A Brazilian TV station has shocked the country by screening footage of maximum security prisoners freely smoking cannabis and using mobile phones.
-- Inmate Sentenced for Nextel Phone Scam - A US inmate used a jail telephone to impersonate Hollywood executives and dupe Nextel Communications out of more than 1,000 cell phones.
-- Mobiles in top security prison - Four mobiles were discovered hidden by inmates at one of Britain's top security prisons.
-- Staying well connected in jail - A mafia don in prison in New Delhi, planned the killing of Police officers by SMS.
-- Convict ran drug ring from prison - A Canadian inmate organized a cocaine run from Miami to Canada. Partners on the outside paid for his cell phone bills through phone cards.
-- Camera phone in Sydney jail gets media attention - An illegall photo of flamboyant jailed stockbroker Rene Rivkin, serving the first 24 hours of his sentence for insider trading, was taken on a mobile phone camera inside the detention center and published on the front page of Sydney's Sunday Telegraph.
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