The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation this week announced that the department has awarded a contract for two systems expected to eliminate contraband cell phone use amongst inmates and crack down on dangerous communications.
The contract includes the Inmate/Ward Telephone and Managed Access systems, both of which will be implemented by Global Tel*Link. The department initially made plans to develop the Inmate/Ward Telephone system, which will allow inmates to make approved collect calls on pay phones at a reduced rate and allow multiple payment options for inmates and families, and then added the Managed Access system into the contract to comply with new state law presented in SB 26.
The Managed Access System, expected to be functioning at the first institution by the end of the year, will address unauthorized cellphone use by inmates by blocking cell services such as email, texts, phone calls and Internet access for all cellphone numbers not previously entered into the system as approved devices. The plan includes a cell tower or antenna installation at each state institution, according to CDCR.
"It provides an umbrella where your telephone number must be on this authorized list in order for it to be passed on to a commercial carrier," said Tammy Irwin, project manager for both systems. Unlike call jamming, an illegal practice, the Managed Access System has been approved by the FCC and will affect only designated areas on state prison grounds, she said. California is the first state to implement such a system statewide, according to Irwin.
Packaging both systems in one contract addressed the issue of public safety introduced by prisoners increasingly using unauthorized cell phones and allowed CDCR to consider a solution that would cost the state nothing. The plan, according to Joe Panora, director of the Enterprise Information Services for CDCR, presented a "win-win, creative way for us to address this issue" of cellphone use in state prisons.
Agency CIO Joe Panora - Photo: Bill Foster, Techwire.net
"Contraband cellphone usage has been a growing problem for corrections for a long time," Panora said, who called contraband cellphones a public safety problem that impacts everyone from former crime victims to state prison workers.
Global Tel*Link, the contractor that currently provides payphones for state prisons, was awarded the new contract on Friday and will front the cost of installation, implementation and operation of the new systems and receive revenue generated from anticipated increased pay phone usage in the concession-based contract. The project will provide entirely new hardware for pay phones and the computer systems used to manage pay phones but will not cost the state anything, Panora said.
"The thought then is that there would be enough concession or revenue to offset any cost of the vendor to deploy the managed access system," he said.
With the number of unauthorized, contraband cellphones in California state prisons jumping from 1,400 in 2007 to 15,000 in 2011, prison officials across the country are starting to address the public safety problem presented by the trend.
"This is something that throughout the United States people are going to be looking at our benchmarks and our success here," Panora said.
