Attorney general fights to ban contraband cellphones in SC prisons

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) — South Carolina’s attorney general said he joined a letter supporting the Federal Communications Commission’s new proposed framework regarding contraband cellphones in correctional facilities.

The new proposal would allow state and local facilities to utilize jamming technology to combat safety issues within prison walls.

Attorney General Alan Wilson said inmates can have access to drugs behind the prison walls using contraband cellphones.

“Inmates are not allowed to have cellphones, but they get smuggled into prisons and are used to continue participating in outside criminal activity,” Wilson said. “These criminals continue to deal drugs and even order hits from behind prison walls.”

In the state of South Carolina, 40 people associated with the Insane Ganger Disciples orchestrated a sprawling criminal enterprise from within the prison walls in 2020. The activities included murder, kidnapping, firearms distribution and international drug operations, which were coordinated using contraband cellphones.

A separate inmate was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering for his role in a scheme to extort and defraud military members using contraband cellphones in 2023. Two other inmates were given ‘long’ prison sentences for child sexual abuse material produced and shared using contraband cellphones last week. They were indicted as part of the “Operation Clean Sweep.”

“Federal prisons are allowed to jam cellphones within their walls, without interfering with outside signals, so state prisons should be allowed to do the same,” Wilson said.