Impact Georgia Impact Georgia Special Edition | Page 3

to make it through security once.
For the officers conducting security checks of the hundreds of
prison staff and inmates daily,
the odds are that despite their
best efforts, someone will get
something through.
“Inmates returning from outside
details will smuggle items into a
facility inside their body parts,”
said Myrick. “People will conceal
cellphones in a piece of sod and
then throw it over the perimeter
fence where it won’t be noticed
and can be picked up later. The
methods of concealing and delivering items are so varied it
makes it extremely difficult to
intercept them. We conduct extensive training with our officers
and support staff and are always
looking at ways to improve, but

“They can continue
operation of criminal
enterprises through
outside contacts and
in some cases, the
phones have been
used to threaten witnesses in their case.”
no one will catch everything.”
To help detect “throwovers,”
infrared cameras have been
placed around the perimeter at
several facilities, and the foot-

age from them has resulted in
multiple arrests.
Less frequent, but more troubling is the issue of staff members introducing contraband into
a facility. While the vast majority
of officers and staff are honest
and conduct themselves with
integrity, occasionally this is not
the case.
“Although the department
conducts thorough background
checks on all staff hired, sadly,
at times, the temptation of easy
money can get the best of them,”
said Myrick. “Once a staff member makes the decision to engage in bringing contraband into
a facility, that information can
now be used by inmates to pressure them to continue bringing
items in.”
Employees bringing in cell
phones or other contraband have
reason to be fearful. Aside from
the compromising position they
have placed themselves in with
inmates, the department vigorously prosecutes any staff member found to be bringing contraband into a facility. The arrests
are made public and GDC regularly posts incidents on the GDC
public website and social media
pages. Bringing in contraband is
a felony under Georgia law and
is punishable by up to five years
in prison.
Though every effort at keeping
them from getting in is made,
once the cellphone is inside the
facility the problems they bring

go far beyond inmates having access to social media or making
phone calls home. “A cell phone
gives them free access to the world
outside the prison,” said Myrick.
“They can continue operation of
criminal enterprises through outside contacts and in some cases,
the phones have been used to
threaten witnesses in their case.”
With cell phones representing a
significant threat to staff and the
public, it would seem the simplest
way to keep inmates from using
them would be to render them
ineffective. To combat the cell
phone problem, the department
has invested millions of dollars in
cellular device detection equipment. Through body scanners,
similar to those used at airports,
are used to scan staff and visitors upon entry. Inmates regularly pass through portable Cell
Sense scanners, designed to detect cell phones on their person.
Cell phone access management
systems block unauthorized cell
phones from accessing the signal
of major cell phone carriers, but
at a cost of more than a million
dollars per facility to install, phasing in the technology at all facilities will take time. Cell phone carriers are also reluctant to support
the use of these devices for fear
they will interfere with access to
networks by regular customers in
the area.
So why not use a cell phone
jammer instead? Jamming de(Continued on Page 4)

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