Technology to disable cell phone smuggling expands to more SC jails

COLUMBIA, SC (WCSC) – Millions of dollars are set to address what the head of South Carolina’s prison system calls a top threat to public safety: cellphones smuggled behind bars.

Law enforcement has linked those phones to drug trafficking, hits ordered by prison guards and even the deadliest prison riot in South Carolina history.

“This is life and death. This affects the security of the prisons, it can destabilize the prisons and it affects public safety,” said Bryan Stirling, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Nearly $11 million in the new state budget will bring a cell phone ban program to several state prisons.

Through it, illegal cell phones used behind prison walls can be identified and shut down by carriers in a matter of days.

“We can’t afford not to,” Stirling said.

The Department of Corrections appropriation is short the roughly $30 million that Stirling wanted this year to bring this program to all prisons at once and then keep it funded on a recurring basis.

“I think there’s about seven or eight we can go to with the money they gave us, and hopefully we’ll get more next year,” Stirling said, adding that they hope to have the technology in place at the first group of prisons later. this year.

Stirling has been appealing to the federal government for years to allow the state to block cell phone signals in its prisons, but to no avail.

This cell phone ban program is the compromise they made to address the problem, and the Department of Corrections said a pilot of the program at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville has been successful.

South Carolina is the first state in the country to use this type of tool, and Stirling said other states are taking notice.

“People come to South Carolina to see what we do,” he said. “We have several states coming here. We lead the country in cell phone bans.”

This program is among several tactics the Department of Corrections uses to try to keep contraband out, including searches, scanners, drones and nets.

Stirling also said the most important action they can take to keep prisons safe is hiring more qualified officers, which will be his top budget priority next year.