The Chief Inspector of Prisons in the UK (a job that I really hope involves a funny hat and striped knickers) recently said that “the illegal use of mobile phones was widespread in most prisons and installing phones in cells would enable more calls to be monitored.”
This is prison, not a hotel. In fact, prison sounds pretty nice these days: full gym, library, three square meals a day (which I never understood, my meals come in all shapes and sizes unless I’m eating out of a damn Bento box), and TV. Hell, that sounds better than the average lifestyle in the Projects.
But some 7,000 illegal mobile phones and SIM cards are found in jails each year, amid fears inmates are using them to commit further offences or intimidate victims and witnesses.
How is this possible in a closed system? Where inmates are screened and strip-searched before they come in? Where visitors receive the same scrutiny? I have no clue how it’s so easy to get stuff into prison when it’s essentially a closed system with heavily monitored inputs. If you can sneak a phone into prison, then you sure as hell can sneak in a weapon.
The Chief Inspector continues:
I’m certainly not advocating every prisoner has a phone in their prison from which they can ring anyone they want, but I think there are some prisoners where, provided it was properly managed and supervised, it would be efficient and help people to sort themselves out.
Somehow, they managed to sort themselves out just fine a decade and a half ago when mobile phones were not ubiquitous.
I’m sure they’ll manage just fine without.
