
Lawmakers are considering proposals to impose harsher penalties for inmates and correctional officers caught with cell phones and other contraband behind prison walls.
State law says that anyone found with prison contraband faces a minimum of three years and a maximum of 15 years in prison along with a $25,000 fine.
Wednesday, the House Corrections Committee approved a measure that would double those penalties. Cell phone chargers and SIM cards would also be included in the list of contraband.
Marshall Fisher, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections, said the agency possesses cell-phone jamming technology, but that he’s unhappy with its performance. Fisher said he has received reports of prisoners with active Facebook profiles and communicating with victims.
“It works part of the time, but it’s not 100 percent,” Fisher said of the cell phone jammers.
Fisher, along with other state prison leaders, have asked the Federal Communication Commission for help with curbing the problem. In a letter to the FCC, Mississippi prison officials cited a Mississippi Today story noting that more than 9 million texts and attempted transmissions have been intercepted from inmate cell phones at two state prisons in the past five years.
Corrections officials cited a federal conspiracy case trial that revealed Mississippi prison inmates orchestrated murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, money laundering, drug distribution and firearms trafficking all via illegal cell phones.
Rep. Charles Young, D-Meridian, said although the prison cell phone issue is worrisome, he doesn’t believe the state should always impose the maximum.
“We need the deterrent in place to at least put something on the minds of the inmates and everyone who is involved with the conspiracy,” Young said.
The bill passed with two no votes.
Also Tuesday, the House debated a bill that would provide for enhanced penalties for selling, bartering or exchanging drugs near rehabilitation facilities or within jails and prisons. Debate on the bill was tabled after a parliamentary inquiry and could resume at a later time.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.