Cell phone jammer are increasingly needed in American prisons

Unlike previous events when authorities used jammers to cut off telecommunication signals, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) officer-in-charge Catalino Cuy said the government would not request telecommunications companies to suspend their operations at the venues of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

“That is also part of the directive of the President to minimize inconvenience. It is true that when network signals are gps jammer threats of remote detonation will be lessened, but we took it upon ourselves to check using our personnel and K-9 units,” Taas explained.

If South Carolina prisons were able to use cellphone signal jamming technology, an inmate would not have been able to escape from a maximum-security prison last Tuesday, state officials say. State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel and Gov. Henry McMaster on Friday echoed Stirling's frustration with the federal government on changing policy to allow the signal jamming.

As they await legislative relief from the problem, corrections officials are using various technologies that detect and find cell phones. Both high-technology and low-technology approaches are being tested and used. Several agencies have installed sensors that detect and find cell phones when in use. One such device tested in a Pennsylvania prison signaled cell phone location to within four cells on two tiers. Some sensors can even detect cell phones that are turned off, but they only work when in close proximity to a phone, cost between $15,000 and $20,000, and require trained staff. Others use new detectors that can identify nonmetallic objects to conduct searches. For smaller facilities, the use of specially formulated paints and coatings that block radio frequency signals may help.

“On January 17, BOP will test micro-jamming and evaluate whether we can use that new technology in prisons without disrupting services in the surrounding area," Rosenstein told a conference of state and federal correction officials in Orlando, Fla. The Justice Department micro-drone jammer test is the agency's latest effort to crackdown on phone use. In August, the Justice Department asked Federal Communications Commission regulators to come up with a way to stop inmates from using contraband cellphones, according to the Associated Press.

South Carolina Department of Corrections director Bryan Stirling was at the meeting representing for S.C. Stirling said this is the first time prison officials, the FCC and the Department of Justice have sat down to discuss solutions to fix the issue of cell phones in prisons. A solution that Stirling has been fighting for over the years is prison cell phone high power jammer, “I am confident that micro-jamming or jamming in general will work and if the industry wants to give us other solutions to this problem, we’re willing to listen and want to work with them on that,” Stirling said about cell phone jamming.