COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) – Millions of dollars are set to address what the head of South Carolina’s prison system calls a top public-safety threat: cellphones smuggled behind bars.
Law enforcement has connected these phones to drug trafficking, hits ordered on prison guards, and even the deadliest prison riot in South Carolina history.
“This is life and death. This affects prison safety, it can destabilize the prisons, and it affects public safety,” South Carolina Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said.
Nearly $11 million in the new state budget will bring a cellphone interdiction program to several state prisons.
Through it, illegal cell phones being used behind prison walls can be identified and turned off by carriers in a matter of days.
“We can’t afford not to do it,” Stirling said.
The Department of Corrections’ allocation is short of the approximately $30 million Stirling wanted this year to bring this program to all prisons at once and then to keep it funded on a recurring basis.
“I think there’s about seven or eight we can go to with the money they gave us, and hopefully we’ll get more next year,” Stirling said, adding they hope to have the technology in place at that first group of prisons by later this year.
Stirling has been pleading with the federal government for years to let the state block cellphone signals inside its prisons, but to no avail.
This cellphone interdiction program is the compromise they struck to address the issue, and the Department of Corrections said a pilot of the program at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville has been successful.
South Carolina is the first state in the nation to employ this type of tool, and Stirling said other states are taking notice.
“People are coming to South Carolina to see what we’re doing,” he said. “We’ve got multiple states coming here. We’re leading the country in cellphone interdiction.”
This program is among several tactics the Department of Corrections takes to try to keep contraband out, including searches, scanners, drones, and netting.
Stirling also said the most significant action they can take to keep prisons safe is hiring more qualified officers, which will be his top budget priority next year.
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