Categories

• View All

• Correctional Facilities

• Corporate/Commercial and Manufacturing

• Healthcare Facilities

• Performa Cycling

Subscribe

Your Email:

Tags

• View All

• Corrections

• Corrections and Prisons

• Cost Reduction

• Design Interventions

• Detention Center

• Evidence Based Design

• Facility Design

• Healthcare Facilities

• Healthcare Solutions

• Hospitals

• How to Get the Hospital Remodel You Need

• How to Reduce Hospital Costs..and Remain Viable

• Justice

• Secrets to Sustainable Improvements in Hospital Operations

• The First Step to Prison Reform: Evidence-Based Programs

• The Need for Change in Prison Design

Cell Phone Contraband: Adding to Staff Injury
Thursday, August 12, 2010

As the Safe Prisons Communications Act awaits a yea or nay, the problem with cell phones in the hands of inmates is ever-increasing. According to a July New York Times article, "States Seek to Jam Prison Cell Phone Signals," 2009, California confiscated 2,809 cell phones. Federal officials found 1,623. We have all seen the unusual smuggling schemes.

In the same New York Times article, inmates use cell phones for extortion schemes, tax evasion plots, drug deals, credit card fraud, prison riots and escapes. Just like drugs and other items, officers are required to confiscate contraband cell phones, which can come at the cost of a conflict.

Conflict can result in injury, which has the highest rate among correctional staff than in any other career. Injury requires time off and increases the staffing budget line item in the form of workman's compensation and overtime for officers left to pick up the slack. For operators and government officials looking to lower the costs of prison operations, employing hiring and wage freezes may look good in the books, but don't address avoidable staffing costs, like injury and stress.

In a previous blog, “More Ways to Eliminate Cell Phone Contraband,” we mentioned two other ways to eliminate cell phone contraband in prisons:

• Create a strategic inmate flow that separates them from the general public.
• Employ advanced technology that helps inmates stay connected to loved ones without physical contact.

Check out the blog here.

If you want to learn how to cut staffing costs with tactics that combat injury and stress, receive our free guide here>>>

<< Back

Free Downloads

• Project Profile

  Massena Border Patrol Station

• White Paper

  Macro Analysis White Paper

• e-book

  Five Correctional Facility Strategies that Cut Construction Costs.

About This Blog

This blog is a collaborative effort of the Justice group at Performa Inc. It is a platform for dialogue and the exploration of issues impacting correctional facilities, detention centers, homeland security facilities and more. The group is led by David Robillard, President of the Performa Justice Team.