SACRAMENTO, April 17 (UPI) -- Calls, Web searches and text messages from cellphones smuggled into California prisons will be blocked with technology a company is to install, officials said.
The private company, Global Tel Link, has agreed to install the multimillion-dollar technology in California's 33 prisons at no charge to the state, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
But the company is expected to benefit because it owns the traditional pay phones prisoners can use legally, and the company believes demand for those phones will increase markedly when contraband cellphones are disabled.
Contraband cellphones have been used to run criminal enterprises, intimidate witnesses and organize attacks on guards, the Times said.
"This groundbreaking and momentous technology will enable [the prison system] to crack down on the potentially dangerous communications by inmates," Corrections and Rehabilitation Department Secretary Matthew Cate said.
California prison guards confiscated more than 15,000 contraband cellphones last year -- nearly one for every 11 inmates. Just five years ago, only 261 cellphones were confiscated.
Under the Global Tel Link plan, each prison phone will get its own cell tower and prison officials will be able to control it, allowing approved phones to send and received calls, but not others. Installing the systems could cost $16.5 million-$33 million, Cate estimated last year.
The Times said Global Tel Link did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
