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Tech

Why Are There So Many Illicit Mobile Phones in UK Prisons?

They probably don’t all belong to criminal masterminds.

​It's illegal for UK prisoners to have a mobile phone, but plenty make their way into the inmate community. In 2013, 7,451 illicit mobile phones and SIM cards wer​e seized in British jails.

The government has been discussing proposals that would compel mobile phone networks to block phones and SIMs being used in prison, which the Ministry of Justice argues "can lead to bullying and disorder, as well as being used by serious and organised criminals to continue their illegal activities, such as drug smuggling from behind bars."

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In a statem​ent, Prisons Minister Andrew Selous said that, "Our range of tough security measures has already successfully seen the number of seizures increase, but this proposed new legislation will significantly increase our ability to tackle this problem."

"By ordering a phone to be cut off once it is identified," Selous added, "we will be able to reassure victims and prevent further criminal activity faster and wider than ever before."

Mobile phones, though illegal, are a popular commodity in prisons. Of those 2​013 figures, 488 phones and SIMs were seized at HM Prison Kirkham in Lancashire, more than any other prison. Kirkham has a population of 562 inmates.

But while stories of criminal masterminds plotting on mobile phones while locked up make good tab​loid fodder—and there are reported cases around the world of phones being used to orchestrate organised​ crime—mobiles are attractive to UK inmates for much more mundane reasons.

"In my experience, and I spent 30 years in prison, people in prison use mobile phones mainly because they're a lot cheaper than prison phones, and also they're able to speak to their friends and family in private," Noel Smith told me.

Smith is a commissioning editor for Inside Time​, the national newspaper for prisoners. In total, he served 32 years in many different UK prisons for crimes including armed robbery. In 2010 he was released from a life sentence on parole, and has been working at the paper ever since.

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"Whenever the Ministry of Justice or government want to justify anything, they talk as though everyone in prison is a criminal mastermind and they're all running vast criminal organisations on the outside," Smith told me in a phone interview.

People in prison use mobile phones mainly because they're a lot cheaper than prison phones, and also they're able to speak to their friends and family in private

He said that he knew people in jail toward the end of his sentence who had mobile phones—"and I know for a fact none of them were using them to organise crime outside."

Rather, he said, prisoners use phones for the same reason other people do: to call friends and family.

UK prisons have phones inmates can use that operate on a PIN ​system—to use it, you have an identifying number associated with your phone credit and cleared numbers you're allowed to call. Most calls, with exceptions such as calls to legal advisers, are mo​nitored.

But Smith said that these were expensive to use. In 2008, the National Consumer Council (which no longer exists) complai​ned to the Ofcom regulator that prison phone call costs were too high, resulting in half of calls from jail lasting less than three minutes.

In 2009, British Telecom—which has a contr​act with the Prison Service for the PIN phone system—reduced its pric​es in response. They have since changed, and BT told me that calls are agreed by the Ministry of Justice and private prison operators. Depending on the time of day, a call to a UK landline now costs 9.17 or 8.16p per minute, and a call to a UK mobile costs 20.4 or 13.2p per minute.

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Cost is not the only restriction. Prisons have control over when people can make phone calls, and these can only be made to cleared numbers (to prevent the kind of bullying or criminal behaviour above). Calls are also monitored. All of which makes a smuggled mobile seem a pretty attractive alternative.

2011 Guardia​n article reported on one prison that had installed phone lines in cells 24 hours a day. At Lowd​ham Grange and some other prisons managed by Serco, calls are still monitored and restricted to pre-approved numbers, but can be made on demand. A prison operations director told the Guardian that the initiative was followed by a decrease in attempts to smuggle in illicit mobiles.

There are several measures already in place to stop mobile phones—along with other restricted items—getting into the prison population, such as searches, metal detectors, and CCTV.

Smith said it would be "almost impossible" for a visitor to smuggle a phone to a prisoner because of rigorous security measures before and after visits. "So a lot of the stuff comes in either thrown over the wall in parcels or from civilian prison workers and prison officers themselves," he said.

"When you think that a £10 mobile phone that you can buy on the street is worth £300 on the landing of a prison, there is a vast opportunity for prison officers to earn a lot of money, and prison staff to earn a lot of money out of mobile phones."

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There are also ways to stop prisoners using mobiles without needing to find the actual device. In 2012, prisons got the power to simply block mobile ph​one signals in prisons. But the Ministry of Justice has suggested in the​ past that the jamming technology is "prohibitively expensive."

The new proposal, which would be an amendment to the Serious Crime Bill, would involve using "cutting-edge detection equipment" to identify phones and SIM cards being used in prisons. The Prison Service would then go to the courts to ask for those numbers to be disconnected. If the court grants approval, phone networks would be obliged to cut them off.

I asked Smith if he thought this would be effective. "It's not going to work," he said. "I mean, all you do is change the SIM card, change the number, it's as simple as that."

In all, Smith said technology was hard to come by inside. Writing in the Guar​dian shortly after his release, Smith recalled that technological advances were one of the things that most baffled him on his re-entry into the outside world. "Before going to jail I'd had a mobile phone the size of a paperback book, and it had an aerial sticking out of it," he wrote.

"People who have been in jail for 10 or 15 years are anxious to get hold of mobile phones in order to see what the technology's like," he told me. "It's one of those things; they become sought after in prison."