COLUMBIA, S.C. — Attorney General Alan Wilson, along with multiple agencies, announced Tuesday afternoon, new state grand jury indictments related to criminal activity. Activity which officials they say, all stems from contraband cell phones.
“Enough is enough and I can’t underscore that enough. If you are in the prison system and you are committing these crimes we are coming for you,” he says.
New indictments stacked up to and 57 charges against nine defendants.
"People behind prison can be just as dangerous behind those walls as they are in front of those walls, if we can’t jam the cell phone and if we cant stop the enabling by some of these corrupt officials,” he adds.
A pilot program initiated this past summer has successfully disabled hundreds of illicit phones at Lee Correctional Institution.
“In July the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) announced a new order, that will allow us to identify the IMEI number the International Mobile Identifier Number of these cell phones so far at Lee Correctional since July 29th, we’ve identified and shut off 790 of those phones there’s about 1,000 inmates at Lee that’s almost one phone per inmate,” says Department of Corrections Director, Bryan Stirling.
Adding, “The other way I know it's working our legitimate phone calls the phone calls they can make for 5 cents per minute have gone up almost 70%,”.
Stirling says more needs to be done, he’s requesting $30 million dollars in the next state budget for the technology to be installed state wide shut these phones off.
He’s also asking the FCC to allow state prisons to jam.
“There is a federal prison across the street, literally across the street, we can’t jam but they can jam, so that would deny service so we wouldn’t have to find the phone and turn it off,,” he adds.
If these issues aren’t fixed officials say it’s only hurting those behind prison walls and the larger community.
"Cell phones are the thing that allow this to happen, it allows inmates to coordinate contraband, allows them s to hurt our citizens,” Stirling says.
Attorney General Wilson stressed all defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.