April 26, 2006
Cell phone smuggling is a big problem in Texas prisons
Phones smuggled into jails is a problem worldwide - this blog has an entire chapter devoted to Inmates and cell phone stories - as thanks to cell phones convicts are able to stay in touch with the outside world and continue business as usual (sort of), running rackets, directing drug cartels, even ordering executions from behind bars.
In the UK penitenciaries, it seems SIM cards have become a valuable currency, as they can contain the key to a criminal enterprise. One prison officer said told The Telelgraph. "It is the equivalent of handing someone a ready-made business".
Today The Houston Chronicle opens our eyes to yet another way cell phones are used by Texas inmates, they're used a currency as prisoners sell minutes to other inmates. "It's just like American Express it's good as cash," said John Moriarty, inspector general of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Investigators say prisoners are willing to pay between $350 and $600 to have a phone smuggled into prison.
... But some defense attorneys say <prosecutors haven't proven cell phones are used for anything more than getting in touch with family. Texas prisons don't have pay phones, so offenders are desperate to communicate.
"Drugs take you out of the prison psychologically," said David P. O'Neil, a defense attorney in Huntsville and former director of the prison system's public defender's office. "Phones place you outside the prison in a different sense. There is a premium on escaping in that sense."
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