Cell phones causing issues in prison

CARLISLE, Ind. (WTHI) - They make the communication world go round. Now-a-days it's nearly impossible to get through a day without them.

We're talking about cell phones, but behind bars, they're much more powerful, and prison workers said they're gaining steam, quickly becoming some of the most dangerous pieces of contraband in prisons.

"If they're going to use a weapon, it's going to be a one time use and we're going to get that. A cell phone may go undetected for months. Sometimes years," Officer Robbie Marshall from the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana said.

Last year, News 10 told you about a massive drug bust, run from the inside of another prison, with cell phones, and that definitely wasn't an isolated case.

In fact since 2010, Officer Marshall's department found almost 200 cell phones at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.

With such intense measures used just to get inside prison, how phones getting through?

"More than likely, there are visitors that are bring the cell phones in to them. They'll conceal it on their person, or inside themselves," Marshall said.

-He said visitors will frequently put the phones in unmentionable, and at times unthinkable places.

-They've also been known to try sending them to facilities using secret compartments in pieces of mailing packages.

-Marshall also admits some have gotten help from the prison staff.

What is most disconcerting to Marshall is why he thinks some inmates are using cell phones.

He recounts one experience:

"We confiscated a cell phone that an inmate had in his possession and learned through that cell phone that he had tried to obtain personal information about one of our staff members. We don't know what the intent was, but he definitely was trying to obtain personal information on a staff member, Marshall said.