Call to block prisoners' phones

HI-TECH jamming equipment should be introduced into a jail near Plymouth to block mobile phone signals, according to a senior prisons inspector.

Ministry of Justice figures show 81 phones and SIM cards were confiscated at Dartmoor, a Category B prison, last year. This compares with 40 in 2007 and just 19 in 2006.

Ministers acknowledge illicit mobiles in jails are a threat to security and public safety.

Behind bars phones can cost £400 each and David Jamieson, chairman of the Independent Monitoring Board at Britain's largest jail, Wandsworth in London, said the trade was worth £9million in 2008, when 7,000 phones were seized in jails across the country. Mr Jamieson said he believed three times as many mobiles were still in circulation within prisons.

Signal-blocking technology would render them useless, preventing prisoners using them to co-ordinate crime and intimidate witnesses on the outside.

"It would cost about £250,000 to equip a prison to jam calls," he said. "That would pay for itself quite easily over time."

He accused the government of 'pussyfooting around' the issue.

The MoJ said it was already an offence to smuggle a phone into prison and proposed legislation in the Crime and Security Bill would make possessing one in jail a criminal offence, rather than simply a breach of rules.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "The National Offender Management Service is continuing to trial a range of blocking technology in a number of establishments and will look to roll out blockers more widely as funding becomes available.

"However, blocking is not a quick, simple or cheap option. It is technically challenging, given the different fabric and layouts of prisons and the need to identify blockers that are effective within prisons without adversely affecting signals outside."