Cell Phone Smuggling: Pressure Mounts on Mexican Government to Crack Down on Prisons Anjalee Khemlani - Latin Post
go to original July 21, 2014

Technology exists to track calls from prisons in Mexico, but a plethora of reasons surround why the government has failed to block these calls and prevent the extortion of the country's residents.

One of the most commonly cited issues is the interference with cellphone service of neighbors of the prisons, according to an opinion article in El Universal.

Other issues include its lack of reliability, the ease of bribing a technician and hacking into the system.

"It is very important to find out whether the signal jammers are operating correctly from inside the prison complexes," said Renato Sales, who was recently named national anti-kidnapping coordinator in March, according to El Pais.

But jamming the signals near the prisons has had an unintended consequence: Neighbors and nearby businesses are affected, especially in more urban areas, according to El Universal.

Government officials recognize that cellphones are being smuggled into the prisons, even to prisoners in solitary confinement, and there has been no way of ensuring prison guards do not succumb to inmate threats or to bribery, according to El Pais.

Read the rest at Latin Post

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