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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
Shows one of two specialized signal detectors that will be used to guard against illicit listening devices, donated by the U.S. Embassy. Photo: US Embassy
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NASSAU, The Bahamas --- Officials of Her Majesty’s Prisons, Fox Hill, said the donation of more than $50,000 worth of state-of-the-art corrections technology, including two cell phone locaters, by officials of the United States Embassy, Nassau, should reduce the flow of cell phones into the penal institution to a minimum.
Prison Superintendent Dr. Elliston Rahming, said Prison officers were confiscating an average of 20 cell phones per week since the first quarter of the year due to a “rigorous search programme” implemented at the facility.
The cell phone locaters, he said, will be used as a supplement to the programme to ensure that prison officials are confiscating all of the contraband phones.
“Phones have a wide variety of ways of getting into prisons; it’s a problem that bedevils prisons around the world,” Dr. Rahming said. “We can guess how they come in, we have a number of ways we can try to reduce the flow of phones, but this is a prison and so the phones can be brought in by visitors, by a small pocket of staff, by inmates themselves, or some may be thrown over the perimeter.
“It’s a problem that has always affected prisons worldwide, but we believe that these cell phone locators will help reduce the presence of contraband phones to the minimum level,” Dr. Rahming added.
Valued at $50,000, the equipment also includes a B.O.S.S. III Chair, a three-zoned body scanner used to detect weapons concealed by inmates; a Dip Device Drug Screening Kit, used for the disposable onsite drug screening of inmates to detect cocaine and marijuana abuse; two specialised signal detectors that will be used to guard against illicit listening devices, detect unauthorised RF signals such as cell phones, and uncover potentially dangerous, illicit electronic devices.
Extensive training on the proper use of the detection equipment for 12 prison officers has been included in the package.
The presentation was made by United States Charge d’ Affaires, Mr. John Dinkelman, to Superintendent Rahming. Minister of National Security, Dr. the Hon. Bernard J. Nottage and Minister of State for National Security, Senator Keith Bell, were present for the Hand-Over.
U.S. Embassy officials said the prison support programme is valued at over $100,000. The donation will complement a more in-depth training with Her Majesty’s Prisons in partnership with the Rhode Island Corrections Department, scheduled for this fall.
Dr. Rahming said search parties will now be armed with the locaters so that cell phones that are stashed/hidden in various places are immediately detected electronically.
“Once this locator is in the area, it ought to send off a signal that there is a cell phone somewhere nearby and it will allow officers to conduct searches more diligently, knowing with greater certainty that there is a cell phone nearby,” Dr. Rahming added.
Dr. Rahming said Prison officials had ordered cell phone jammers to guard against inmate use of contraband phones almost five years ago, but that the jammers were so powerful they knocked out cell phone operations throughout the entire eastern corridor.
“As a result, that programme had to be shut down. This is less intrusive but hopefully just as effective because once we locate the phone(s) obviously we are going to confiscate it (them) and destroy it/them,” Dr. Rahming added.
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