[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 1, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2537-S2538]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Contraband Cell Phones in Prison

  Mr. President, on Facebook, a posting was made not long ago, and it 
was sent to a correctional facility in Oklahoma, and this was the 
posting, simply a question: ``How do I contact the facility regarding 
your inmates that sex offenders have a cell phone in your prison and 
they are having contact with children on social media?''
  An inmate who is a sex offender with a cell phone in a prison in 
Oklahoma contacting children should give a chill to all of us. I wish 
that were the only example. Just in Oklahoma last year, 7,518 cell 
phones that were contraband cell phones were picked up in Oklahoma 
prisons--just last year, 7,518 contraband cell phones.
  This is within the correctional facility. This is from one of the 
facilities. That table is 12 feet long, and in many spots, the cell 
phones are stacked up 10 deep on this picture. These were all taken 
from inside the prison. Do you want to know what that looks like for 
the whole State and how that is gathered? The picture would look like 
this. This is the gathering of cell phones from my State, from 
correctional facilities across the State.
  The challenge that we have is--for all of us--how do we stop these 
cell phones from getting inside the prison? That is a corruption issue, 
and sometimes it is a perimeter issue. It will be wrapped in duct tape 
and thrown over the fence. It will be slipped through at some point. A 
guard or someone who works inside the prison will be paid off to 
deliver it and drop it in a certain spot. The result of it is the same: 
contact with people on the outside--contact that leads to dramatic 
effects. It is not only contact with people outside, like these 
predators who are sex offenders reaching out to children from inside 
the prison, but over and over again there are consequences.

  We have the consequences of individuals--for instance, white-collar 
criminals who are continuing to run their companies. There was the 
famous occasion of the person known as the Pharma Bro, who bought out 
pharmaceutical companies, drove out competition, jacked up the prices, 
and ended up going to Federal prison, but even from prison he was able 
to get access to a cell phone and continue running his pharmacy 
operation from inside the prison.
  There was an occasion not long ago in Oklahoma where an individual 
who was a murderer and, while he was in the State penitentiary, used 
cell phones to direct others to distribute methamphetamine for him 
across all of Northeastern Oklahoma. He was running a meth ring with 
his cell phone from inside the prison.
  There was a prison facility, Lee Correctional Institution, where 
there was a mass riot that broke out inside the facility. In that riot 
seven inmates were killed and 17 others were injured. This happened in 
South Carolina. Afterward the South Carolina Department of Corrections 
director blamed cell phones for fueling the deadliest prison riot they 
had in South Carolina.
  In another case, back in an Oklahoma prison, many of those charged 
within the prison have gang ties--MS-13, Crips, Indian Brotherhood, 
Universal Aryan Brotherhood, Irish Mob. Records show that those 
individuals had access to cell phones and were running their gangs 
outside the prison from inside the prison. We have one individual who 
is serving 20 years in prison for robbery and assault with a dangerous 
weapon and drug manufacturing and who used his cell phone to control 
the methamphetamine distribution and transactions outside the prison.
  We have a RICO case in the Northern District of Oklahoma right now, 
which is racketeering, which is happening from large numbers of cell 
phones in an Aryan Brotherhood gang, a White supremacist group that is 
operating a drug ring outside the prison and coordinating their work 
and operation inside the prison.
  This is not unique to Oklahoma. This is happening in prisons all over 
the country. We can go to one after another after another.
  The two issues that have to be addressed are stopping the flow 
within, but the second, more obvious question that I hear from people 
when I raise this issue is this: Why can't the prisons just jam the 
cell phones?
  That is a great question. Federal law does not allow State prisons to 
jam the cell phones.
  Why don't we change that law?
  That is another great question, and it should have been answered by 
this body a long time ago. But communications companies and cell phone 
company lobbyists overwhelmed this body and pushed back and said: Let's 
study the issue.
  For years the cell phone lobby has come to Members of Congress and 
said: We totally agree with you that this is a problem. Let's study it.
  I have met personally now for several years with the leadership of 
the FCC, which has jurisdiction over this, and said ``Let's resolve 
this issue about prison cell phones,'' and every year when I meet with 
FCC folks, they say ``We are studying it.'' At the same time, meth 
rings and sexual predators are operating inside our prisons. ``We are 
studying it.''
  I waited patiently until the last study just came out. The summary of 
the last study that just came out on cell phones in prisons and jamming 
them--the study basically came back and said: We need more study on 
this issue. That was the result of the study.
  One of the prisons got permission and a waiver to test a cell phone 
jammer in their prison with what is called a microjammer; they can put 
a jammer to block the cell phone coverage in one particular housing 
unit. They came back with the results of that from one individual State 
prison and said it was successful. The cell phone companies responded 
by saying: Hey, we wish you would have included us in that study. We 
should have been involved in that study. We need to do another study on 
top of your study to make sure it is all correct. Study after study 
after study is done when this is what is happening in our prisons.
  So let me just bring this up to the cell phone industry: You do not 
want your company name attached to pedophiles in prisons who are 
contacting children outside the prison, waiting until they are 
released. You do not want your company name attached to a meth ring 
being operated inside a prison because you wanted to study the issue 
more. You do not want your company name attached to a prison riot where 
they directly linked the access to cell phones as leading up to that 
riot.
  Every one of the major cell phone companies in the United States has 
done lab testing of jammers in their labs. This is not something that 
needs to be studied again. They all know the results.
  What is worse, if you go back to 2005--New Zealand had already seen 
this issue arising in 2005. New Zealand worked with all of the cell 
phone companies in their country, and guess what. They studied it and 
implemented a policy to start jamming cell phones in their prisons in 
the following years. The cell phone companies overseas have already 
studied this in New Zealand.
  Let's take it to the UK in 2012. In 2011, all of the cell phone 
companies

[[Page S2538]]

worked with the UK Government to be able to study cell phones in 
prisons, came to a decision about the best way to jam those signals, 
and, in 2012, the UK passed a piece of legislation to get this 
resolved.
  So this has been studied in labs; it has been studied in New Zealand; 
it has been studied in the UK; and all we are hearing is it needs to be 
studied more here.
  My suggestion is simple. Let's jam cell phones in prisons for the 
protection of our guards, our families, and to block criminal activity 
operating from inside our prisons. We know how to do this. We have the 
technology to do this. This body needs to address it in law and make 
sure it gets resolved in the days ahead. I look forward to passing that 
and not doing one more study to delay action on it.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. SMITH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
30 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.