Tackling Mobile Abuse
HMP Norwich has installed a new system that detects illegal mobile phone usage. It works by having a series of detection units hidden securely throughout the prison. These constantly monitor the prison for the wavelengths used by mobile phones and then feed their data back to a base station. This gives real time intelligence and location information accurate to a couple of cells. It’s making illegal mobile phone usage almost impossible. Custodial Review spoke to Tony Phillips SO Security and Paul Mortimer the Security Manager at HMP Norwich about the system.
Q I visited here a couple of years ago and know that you’re very good at detecting contraband smuggling. So what made you decide to bring in this mobile phone detection system?
A Here at Norwich, as across the entire prison system, mobile phones have become a increasing problem, they give an ability to carry out criminal activity, to harass witnesses and make calls that cannot be monitored via the pin phones. Stopping the problem is a priority.
Q Has the problem got much worse recently??
A The number of mobile phones that were coming into the prison had increased, so had their usage.
Q What were you doing in the past to tackle the problem and what were that method and systems downsides?
A We were using the ordinary hand held mobile phone detectors, the types that were used were brought by bulk and distributed to each establishment. They are good and do what they are supposed to. However they don’t have the range or the ability to pinpoint the mobile phones location that this new system has. Neither do they have its constant monitoring and analysis functions.
Also the hand held’s required you to be in the process of actually searching a wing for phones when the phone was being used, so they were very labour intensive. We are still using effective methods to try and stop the mobiles’ being smuggled into the prison however we are now able to target and find the few that do come in far more accurately and quickly.
Q, What is the new equipment you now using and how is it deployed?
A, It’s a networked surveillance system that’s been provided by a company called PDA Electronics. It consists of a central hub that resides in the security office and seven remote sensing units that are strategically placed throughout the prison. Because they are battery powered and do not require wiring to the base unit the remote sensing units can be quickly and secretly located in areas where we suspect illegal phone activity.
Q Do you place them around the prison and depending on signal strength work out pretty accurately where mobile phones are being used?
A Yes, this is one of the great things with this piece of equipment. We can place the receivers so to give us an accurate idea where the phone is being used. You can pin-point that because it works on the strength of the phones signal and this allows you to triangulate a location. Then we use the hand-held detectors that are kept on the wings to find the particular cell.
Q How much of the prison can you monitor at one time for mobile phone abuse? And how many of the hand-held devices do you have? Does it detect all phones?
A Effectively we monitor all of the prison at the same time because we have remote sensing units on each of the wings. We currently have eight of the hand hand-held devices and each wing has one for identifying what cell the mobile phones are in. We use them when the remote sensing units detect mobile phone activity. Both the hand held units and the remote sensing units detect analogue and digital phones
Q How long did it take your team to use this new equipment effectively?
A Almost immediately. The only slight problem we had was because of the building was blocking some of the signal between one of the remote sensing units and the base station. PDA installed a relay unit that overcame this problem as soon as we highlighted it.
Q How effective has this equipment been and how many mobile phones are you finding?
A It has been fantastic, we’ve discovered and seized a lot of phones and usage has dropped. After the initial discovery surge you could see the mobile phone activity detected by the machine just drop away to almost nothing. When we first installed the system it was detecting a lot of mobile phone activity. The first night it was working we had 99 activations being made from this establishment
Q 99 calls being made out of this one prison?
A No, when you turn a mobile phone on it contacts it’s network, that’s one activation, when you use it will be another activation and when it is turned off it will contact the provider as well. So 33 cycles of use were happening. That’s 33 mobile calls.
Q And that has dropped down to nil?
A Difficult to say, some days we don’t get any notifications, other days we might get 20. Some of those, because we are a city centre location, may be outside the establishment.
Q What effect has this had on the prison generally?
A It is quite difficult to judge but we have seen an increase in attempts of criminal activity on the pin phones. This would suggest access to mobiles is more limited. We also appear to have a decrease in throw-overs of packages because of the ability to arrange for the items to be collected is impaired.
Q Phones are used to be a good source of bullying and internal trade, is there any evidence of that diminishing?
A Not a noticeable amount, the bullying is still down to trading of items like it always has been.
Q What about in terms of staff time, how has this system contributed to that being used more effectively? Is must be quicker to find a mobile phone now?
A It’s had a fantastic effect. In the past what we would have done was arrange for a group of staff to be available, predominantly out of hours, to do the best we could with the hand held detectors we had before. Then we would search a series of cells. Whereas now we’re not really looking at any out of hours work, we can do the search when and where the system tells us a phone has been used. We now know which area to look in we know what time of the calls are being made. We’ve had some fabulous results. One where we walked into a cell and an inmate was on the call! He said ‘Goodbye’ and handed the phone over. That’s how good the system is.
Q The inmates have obviously picked up the use on these detectors?
A I think they know that we use them, but I don’t think they are aware at how well we can reduce the area we need to search to find the phone!
Q How do you rate this equipment, do you consider it to be an essential piece of your tool kit? Are the manufacturers responsive to sorting out snagging issues and operational problems?
A It is a brilliant bit of kit and PDA are excellent in listening to what you have to say and fulfilling the need if there is one.
Thank you for talking to the Review.
For more information on the system contact PDA Electronics Limited
Tel: 01494 794949
www.pdaelectronics.com
|
