We send criminals to prison not only to punish them, but also to protect society and give those who broke the law an opportunity to reform themselves. Contraband cellphones are a direct threat to these key principles of our justice system. We must disable these tools of criminality by adopting the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act, which I reintroduced last week in the U.S. Senate.
Last year, 23 states reported seizing over 24,000 contraband cellphones from inmates. Inmates use these illegally smuggled cellphones to communicate with one another and with criminals still on the streets. They use them to maintain illicit networks, murder witnesses, extort prison guards, and terrorize their former communities. Some gangs have used contraband cellphones to transform their prisons into fortresses of crime — ordering hits on their rivals on the outside, while being insulated from retaliation by the walls and guards intended to contain them.
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