*That seems like rather a lot of activity. Especially from people who are already in the physical control of the authorities.
If you can't find them, brick them
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Judges in California and South Carolina have ordered cellphone carriers to disable nearly 200 contraband cellphones used by inmates to orchestrate crimes behind and outside prison walls, the most sweeping order of its kind ever won by corrections officials.
It’s an important victory for prison officials who have been frustrated by their inability to stop the flow of smuggled phones that are used to coordinate drug deals, gang operations and killings. Even murderous cult leader Charles Manson, who died in November, obtained phones and used them to communicate with followers outside prison.
The warrant essentially orders carriers to “turn these phones into bricks,” California Corrections Secretary Scott Kernan told The Associated Press on Monday. The phones will be shut down over the next week or two, he said.
Kernan expects other states will follow the lead of South Carolina and California and ask judges to approve broad shutdowns. He said the ruling is a big step forward in addressing the intractable and related issue of drugs and cellphones in prisons.
Last February, federal prosecutors said two inmates used smuggled cellphones to run a violent, drug-dealing street gang from inside California’s super-maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison. And South Carolina officials blamed a prison riot that killed seven inmates in April on a turf war between gangs over territory, money and contraband items such as drugs and cellphones....
