Although we are slightly relieved that no Communications Data Bill has been sneaked into the Queen's Speech, as originally threatened by the disgraced former Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, this Labour Government simply cannot resist producing some more useless and repetitive legislation, as a public relations diversion to hide their failure to control aspects of modern technology.
From Times Online
November 18, 2009
Queen's Speech: ban on mobile phones in jailRichard Ford, Home Correspondent
Prisoners who are found with mobile phones while inside jails are to face prosecution under plans outlined in the Queen's Speech today.
The new criminal offence follows growing concern that some prisoners are continuing to run their criminal empires from within jails by using mobile phones.
[...]
It is currently against prison rules for inmates to possess mobile phones in prison.
The Prison Discipline Manual rules, under the Prison Service Order 2000 Adjudication procedures (.doc) , which came into force in 2006, already makes punishments available against any prisoner stupid enough to be caught with a mobile phone in their possession.
These can involve loss of visitor privileges etc. and the imposition of up to 42 days extra detention on top of the existing prison sentence, for each breach of the prison rules.
The new measure is to be included in a Crime and Security Bill ...
[...]
What for ?
This is ridiculous gesture politics which is presumably intended to allow the Labour government politicans and civil servants to "Pretend That They Are Doing Something", without actually devoting real resources to overcome the fundamental problem.
Have the NuLabour political commissars at the Ministry of Justice already forgotten their own Offender Management Act 2007 section 22. Conveyance of prohibited articles into or out of prison ?
This has been in force for less than 2 years and it amended the list of prohibited articles under the Prisons Act 1952, to specifically make it a criminal offence to "convey" or "leave ... intending it to come into the possession of a prisoner" or "give" a mobile phone to a prisoner without authorisation.
This already has a criminal penalty of up to 2 years in prison and / or a level 3 fine i.e. up to £1000.
SInce mobile phones are almost always found as a result of searches of cells and other areas without the physical presence of the prisoner, it is going to be very hard to prove that they are "In possession" of a particular illegal mobile phone ("it must have been planted").
Illegal Mobile Phones in Prisons is actually an area of public security and crime policy where there should be more state surveillance and control, not less !
This is certainly an area where if mobile phone intercept evidence was allowed to be used in a UK court, then prison gang leaders etc. could be convicted "out of their own mouths", without compromising any "national security" sources or methods.
Instead of wasting at least 2 billion pounds on retaining and snooping on innocent people's mobile phone etc. communications, why can this incompetent Government not spend a fraction of that in implementing proper mobile phone security measures at every prison in the UK ?
N.B. This needs to involve the installation of mobile phone pico-cells in prisons, rather than just crude attempts at "jamming", which would cause collateral damage to the surrounding urban areas in which many British prisons are located, and which would otherwise also affect 999 / 112 calls to the Emergency Services.
Her Majesty's Prison Wandsworth Independent Monitoring Board report 2008 - 2009 (.pdf), published in May 2009, which the Ministry of Justice have still not yet bothered (or dared) to reply to:
page 6
For the sixth year running we are asking for the implementation of an effective jamming system for mobile phones in prisons. The lack of a positive response from Government has resulted in an increasing use of mobile phones and a even more rapidly increasing market for drugs in prisons. (9.5)
(our emphasis)
page 39
Mobile phones
• Mobile phones continue to provide the biggest challenge to Security. This year there were 371 occasions when phones were found compared to 307 in 2008. Associated mobile phones
paraphernalia were also found. These included sim cards, hands free kits, chargers, (some home made), battery packs and adapters. The vast majority found in cells but some through Visits.
• Also found during searches were illicit alcohol, DVDs, Digiboxes and a variety of weapons.
• Although the prison was in possession of a BOSS chair (for intimate searching of prisoners) this was hardly used during the reporting period. It is now broken and is under repair.
"HMP Wandsworth is a Victorian Category B Local male prison built in 1851. It is the largest prison in Europe. Certified normal accommodation (CNA) is 1086 and current operational capacity is 1665 ". Surely there should have been at least two Body Orifice Scanning System chairs installed ?
• For the past four years we have asked the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice to implement an effective jamming system to curtail the use of mobile phones. Effective jamming systems are now in place in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. The Government's response has been that they will consider this when funds are available. In the current economic climate this looks high unlikely and the increasing use of mobile phones and the drugs trade in prisons is a certainty
Areas of Concern
• The jamming of the use of mobile phones in the prison needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency[...]
Similarly, the HMP Wormwood Scrubs Independent Monitoring Board report for 2008-2009 (.pdf) says
page 6
8. It is widely recognised that mobile phones are strongly linked to drug activity within prisons. The Board commends the efforts of wing staff and Security staff to search out mobile phones within the prison. However the problem remains. The Board has asked about the provision of mobile phone blockers but has been told that trials of different techniques are being undertaken at other establishments. What are the results of initiatives being trialled to block the use of mobile phones in prisons? What is the current national strategy for combating the mobile phone and drug culture in many prisons?
(bold text as per the original report)
There does not appear to be any viable coherent national strategy against the the "mobile phone and drug culture" in prisons.
Guess where the former Ministry of Justice junior Minister in charge of Prisons, who failed to respond to the pleas of Prison staff and Independent Monitoring Boards, regarding mobile phones in prisons has been promoted to ? Rt. Hon. David Hanson MP, is now the Minister of State for Security, Counter-Terrorism, Crime and Policing at the Home Office - we do not feel any safer as a result of his appointment !
Here is the clause in the Crime and Security Bill 2009:
Even if this Bill actually makes it onto the statute books before the General Election (probably in May 2010) this is not going to solve the problem of "mobile phone and drugs culture" inside prisons, is it ?
"Jam mobile phone signals in prisons, says inspector"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8373604.stm
Video clip
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8373557.stm
Mr Jamieson says in the TV video clip
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8373614.stm
that such locally limited jamming is, according to the Ministry of (In)Justice supposedly already in use in an unspecified number of high security prisons.
On a deeper level the question could be asked: does the HMPS or, more so, the British government want to solve the problem of mobile phone use in British prisons? The answer, I believe, is that they do not want to solve this problem.
Anyone who has ever spent time in a British prison will aknowledge the status quo established by the Prison Service with a wry chuckle, for it is a facade worthy of such a response. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Phones and drugs in prisons serve their purpose, keeping the prison population quelled and posing the minimum resistance to their containment. I would argue that the British government knows this only too well and has no wish to change the situation.
If mobile phones are a tool of the drug dealing prisoner then I would argue that the British government does not want to address the problem of mobile phones in prisons because it opens a much larger can of worms, for example, becoming accountable for the ready availability of drugs and drug-misuse in prisons, which if tackled head-on would cost vast sums of money to solve.
The cheaper option is to 'allow' the use of mobile phones and drugs, the most hilarious paradox to my mind when so many prisoners are serving drug-related sentences, to maintain the status quo. The staus quo is maintained by presenting so-called financial constraints as the reason for why phone jamming technologies cannot be implemented HMPS-wide. The British government/HMPS, oh, you're so funny!!!
Of course mobile phones, just like drugs, are another pacifier that help to maintain the status quo because these phones are used just as much to make a call home to the missis or to have a bit of phone sex fun with the girlfriend (those single cells really are a good thing) rather than any 'serious' criminal enterprise.