Corrections department believes it has fix to illegal phones plaguing SC prisons

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Law enforcement connects a multitude of crimes, ranging from drug trafficking to attempted murder to a deadly prison riot, with a common thread: South Carolina inmates getting their hands on cellphones behind bars.

Now the head of the state’s prison system believes he might have a solution, but he needs support from lawmakers to get it done.

“This is the number one public safety threat we face in this state and in this country, with these cellphones,” South Carolina Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling told a panel of lawmakers this week.

As Stirling addressed legislators, the evidence of the danger these phones pose sat just behind him, the victims of crimes committed by inmates using devices they should have never had.

Among them was former SCDC Capt. Robert Johnson, who was shot six times, 13 years ago, in a hit he says was ordered by a locked-up gang leader.

“I’m still suffering from the results of that shooting. I’ve been battling my body because it wants to give up, but giving up is not an option,” Johnson told lawmakers.

For years, Stirling has been pleading with the federal government to let the state block cellphone signals inside its prisons to stop contraband phone use.

The FCC refuses to do it, faced with opposition from cellphone carriers.

But they came to a compromise, and Stirling said it’s working.

South Carolina is the first state in the nation to implement a new pilot program that allows the Department of Corrections to work with cellphone carriers to identify and disable illegal phones inside prisons.

They have been testing it at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville since late July, and in that time, SCDC reports nearly 800 phones have been identified and disabled, in a prison with just over 1,000 inmates.

“That is 800 avenues, 800 vessels to harm the citizens of South Carolina,” Stirling said.

Meanwhile, the number of monitored calls dialed on the phones the prison provides has gone up 57%, another sign to Stirling that this is working.

Now he wants to implement it in all of South Carolina’s prisons and plans to ask the General Assembly for money in next year’s budget to do so.

They are still determining the exact cost, but the Department of Corrections said it will be a multi-million-dollar request.

“They’re making millions of dollars. They’re corrupting our staff, they’re hurting our citizens, they’re hurting your constituents,” Stirling told lawmakers.

And South Carolinians like Johnson continue to pay the price.

“I’m here to tell you there’s no recovery after this type of shooting,” he said. “I’m here to encourage you to give the Department of Corrections as much help as possible that no one, absolutely no one, goes through what I’ve gone through in the last 13 years.”

In addition to the budget request, Stirling said he also wants lawmakers to pass tougher penalties for corrupt corrections staff who smuggle contraband, including phones, into prisons.

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