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| Phones in prisons a widespread problem |
| By Dallas Morning News |
| Published: 09/20/2004 |
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The ever-ringing cellphone is not just an annoyance in restaurants, theaters and churches in this nation where there are more mobile phones than regular ones. It's also causing havoc in the Mexican capital's prisons. Smaller and smaller Nokias, Motorolas and Sony Ericssons are circulating in the big house, along with drugs and weapons that slip by overwhelmed or corrupt prison officers. Homesick inmates aren't just calling home. They are coordinating armed robberies, drug deals and kidnappings, authorities say. This comes when recent abductions at two shopping malls, a government building and a grammar school have Mexico in panic mode. In response to the proliferation of illegal prison mobiles, Mexico City authorities are cobbling together $1 million to buy cellular "jammers" to cut off the clandestine conversations in the capital's four biggest reclusorios. "The only way to completely resolve this problem is the acquisition of this existing equipment ... to block (cellular) signals," said Hector Cardenas San Martin, outgoing director of the city's prison system. "Every day, these cellular phones are smaller and easier to hide." But prison officials may face a legal fight of their own, given the reluctance of cellular providers - in Mexico, the United States and across the globe - to countenance any disruption in service. "There is no authority that has the right to block a signal that has been licensed, as in our case," said Patricia Ramirez Valdiva, spokeswoman for Mexico's top cellular provider, Telcel, which has 25 million clients and three-quarters of the market. "In order to block our signal, they have to revoke our concession," Ramirez said, citing Mexico's Federal Telecommunications Act. Prison authorities say they will ask Mexico's Communications and Transportation Ministry for an exception to the law based on the fact that organized crime activity - kidnapping and drug trafficking - is going on in the prisons. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment. And so, Mexico City is wading into the middle of a worldwide debate at a time when personal jammers are sold on the Internet for a couple hundred dollars, Muslim nations such as Qatar are installing them in mosques, and nations from Sri Lanka to Brazil are struggling with mobile-wielding inmates. Cellular phone jammers are prohibited in the United States - with a few exceptions for the military and law enforcement - despite interest among some theater owners, librarians and restaurateurs in quieting the multi-tonal cellular ring. |
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