We can calm prison chaos — if the FCC allows cell phone jamming

When the government puts a criminal behind bars, Americans feel relief: That’s one more lawbreaker who can no longer terrorize our communities. 

But too often that is not the case, thanks in large part to contraband phones.

Over the past several years, thousands of cell phones have poured into state and local prisons — smuggled in by bad actors, dropped inside by drones, or thrown over fences into prison yards, among other methods. 

The worst of the worst use these contraband cell phones to continue their criminal enterprises while incarcerated. 

The stories of inmates using contraband phones to order hits, run drug operations and orchestrate a range of violent crimes from behind bars are both alarming and shocking. 

Last year, two 13-year-old boys in Atlanta were gunned down while attending a birthday party after an incarcerated gang leader used a contraband phone to direct the act. 

In another case, a gang leader in North Carolina ordered the kidnapping of a prosecutor’s father through an illicit cell. 

Earlier this month, we toured the Varner Supermax Unit in Lincoln County, Ark., to hear from state and federal law enforcement officials about the risks they’re facing every day.  

Sheriffs and correction officers at Varner told us that finding and confiscating contraband cell phones is one of the most dangerous aspects of their jobs. 

Inmates will do almost anything to obtain and keep the devices, they explained — and they pointed to these phones as the underlying cause of many problems that law enforcement officers face both inside and outside prison walls.  

If we can solve this, they said, we can make significant progress in advancing public safety. 

With tens of thousands of phones illegally smuggled into our correctional facilities each year, a bipartisan coalition of more than 30 state attorneys general has called on Washington to take action so that local officials can disable these devices within prison walls.

In the past, the Federal Communications Commission has authorized various technologies to help identify and disrupt the operations of contraband cell phones.   

For example, the FCC has allowed the use of interdiction systems, which are designed to prevent contraband cell phone transmissions and obtain identifying information from these devices.

But while these tools have helped, officials in our jails and prisons — who work on the front lines and know this issue best — say they’re not enough.

The most impactful solution, they say, would enable correction officials to completely jam cellular communications within the prison walls.  

Simply put, we have the technology to turn contraband cell phones into expensive paperweights. 

The problem? Officials in Washington haven’t given law enforcement the green light to use targeted jamming technologies.

For years, we have advocated for urgent action from Congress and the FCC, respectively. 

We’ve introduced legislation such as the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act that would allow state and federal correctional facilities to use targeted cellphone jamming equipment to render these devices inoperable in prison housing facilities, lifting a federal restriction that precludes it.

This week, the FCC will take up the baton in this campaign. 

On Tuesday, the agency is voting on a proposal that would revise the Commission’s rules to, for the first time, authorize targeted jamming in state and local prisons.

The word to emphasize here is targeted. 

With today’s unprecedented advancements in technology, jamming systems can be set with geographical precision — so as not to interrupt the regular communications of law enforcement working in the prison, or community members in its vicinity. 

In fact, studies have shown the tech can jam housing cells alone, without interrupting the day-to-day operations of correctional facilities. 

The FCC is committed to working with key stakeholders to ensure jamming disrupts no legitimate communications.

The Commission’s proposed rules would also be flexible. 

The FCC would not make the use of jamming technology mandatory, but would put that decision in the hands of local law enforcement, where it belongs.

“This won’t solve every problem in the prison, but it will solve an awful lot of them,” one prison guard at Varner said of the FCC’s action.

President Donald Trump has pledged to make Americans’ safety his priority, and to always have law enforcement’s back. 

The FCC’s move to enable jamming of contraband cell phones — after years of inaction under an administration that facilitated criminal activity — demonstrates that commitment in practice.  

Tom Cotton represents Arkansas in the US Senate. Brendan Carr is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.