THOMASVILLE — Inmates in Georgia prisons and jails will find it more difficult to reach out and get in touch with someone after July 1.

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a Senate bill this week that makes it a crime for Georgia inmates to be in possession of telecommunications devices.

Devices include telephones, cell phones, personal digital assistants, transmitting radios, pagers and computers.

“Cell phones pose a major security breach,” said Bobby Geer, Thomas County Prison warden.

If an inmate is talking on a cell phone, prison officials do not know the person being called or the subject matter. The devices can be used to plan escapes or to arrange for exchanges or deliveries of contraband.

Geer said 26 cell phones were confiscated at his facility in one month. “That’s about the norm,” he explained. “We’re constantly on the search for them.”

After July 1, possession of telecommunications devices by inmates will be a felony if the individual is incarcerated for a felony offense. If the crime is a misdemeanor, communications equipment possession will be a misdemeanor.

Prison officers use metal detectors to find the equipment among the facility’s population, which is about 200 inmates daily.

The only phones allowed for inmate use are certain phones from which prisoners may make collect calls at specified times.

Geer said five cell phones were found hidden in an inmate phone.

Phones have also been found in light fixtures and in shoes. A compartment cut into the pages of a Bible held yet another cell phone.

Recently, an officer followed an inmate’s voice and found him sitting on a toilet talking on a cell phone.

“Statewide, cell phones are a huge problem for security,” the warden explained.

Family members and friends of prison inmates hide cell phones “along the way” for inmates who leave the prison on work details, said Capt. John Richards, chief of operations at Thomas County Sheriff’s Office.

Cell phones usually are uncovered during the booking process at the Thomas County Jail — along with knives, cigarettes and other contraband.

Because the jail is a presentencing facility, cell phones are not the problem they are at a prison, Richards said.

Few cell phones are found during unscheduled jail shakedowns.

In addition to being used to plan escapes, cell phones — in the extreme — could be used as detonators, Richards said.

“We have to be attentive to them being in court as well as in jail,” he added.

Richards said cell phones could be used to photograph the layout of a courtroom. Pictures could be used to plan a courtroom escape.

“They’re more than just a phone,” he said.

Any employee who even attempts to assist an inmate in obtaining a cell phone will be charged with a felony. The employee does not have to complete the act, but merely make an attempt.

Violation of oath of office carries a sentence of one to 10 years. Assisting in obtaining a cell phone would add another one to five years to a former officer’s time in prison, Richards said.



Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.