My 2 Cents: Prisoners With Cell Phones

I was shaking my head after our on a state prisoner at Stringtown who's been posting on Facebook behind bars, VIA HIS CELL PHONE!

Some of the pictures he posted on his Facebook page include one taken just this morning. While that might seem like an incredibly dumb thing to do, but don't underestimate the cunning of these inmates armed with flip phones.

I talked to a half dozen correctional officers Thursday night working in county jails, federal lockups and state prisons, and they tell me cell phones behind bars are becoming a dangerous threat.

More than one officer told me they know inmates who've used cell phones to call friends locked up in other prisons and set up an attack on an enemy there, not to mention drug deals and running criminal activities outside of prison.

Some of the officers said they're confiscating a cell phone from an inmate almost every other day. Those are the ones they're catching, and sadly most of them are brought in by staff members who are slipped from 200 up to 800 bucks for a phone.

Most agreed the punishment for being caught with a phone isn't severe enough. What's the solution?

They could electronically jam the calls, but the FCC says that's illegal. There's something called "call capture" where all cell calls within the prison would be routed to a cellular base station and only those to approved numbers would go through, but it's expensive.

We're going to need to find an answer and soon.