HARLAN RICHARDS

July 19, 2017

The Cellphone Caper

A couple of weeks ago a cellphone was found hidden in the visiting room. Apparently, a visitor found a way to get a cellphone past the metal detector and left it in the visiting room to be smuggled into prison. The assumption is that one of the visiting room workers—the custodian or a photographer—was going to bring it in later.

The workers were placed in segregation during an investigation to find out who was involved. In the meantime, there were no photos taken or pizza sold during visits (photos were reinstated this week).

Here's how I think it happened. When a female visitor arrives and can't make it through the metal detector because she is wearing an underwire bra, she must go into the bathroom and remove the bra. She places it in a bag and then goes through the metal detector. However, to get to the bathroom, she must walk where the visitors who have already made it through the metal detector are waiting. She can pass off the phone or leave it in the bathroom and pick it up after she passed the metal detector. Then she can carry it to the visiting room and hide it.

The flaw in her plan is that there are about 10 cameras covering every square inch of the visiting room. Once the phone was discovered, surveillance footage revealed who planted the phone.

Prison officials know whose visitor brought in the phone and now that prisoner is in segregation. But unless somebody snitches, there is no way they're going to find out who was supposed to bring the phone the rest of the way in.

Meanwhile, visits are going on as usual (except for pizzas). Perhaps if they would allow us to get the tablets they promised us or relax the phone restrictions in their phone system, they wouldn't have to worry about smuggled cellphones.