The Mexican prison system faces serious security challenges, one of which is the use of illegal cell phones by prisoners in prisons for extortion and kidnapping. Even with technical and legal restrictions, prisoners are still able to maintain membership in kidnapping gangs and carry out illegal activities in prisons.
The effectiveness of signal jammers in prisons
The new anti-kidnapping coordinator Renato Sales pointed out that the existing signal jammers are not effective inside prisons. Sales said this means that the state cannot guarantee the integrity of prison management or protection from threats. New plans include remote control monitoring of the use of jammer devices by the Ministry of the Interior in order to address this problem. He also stressed that there should be no cell phone devices in prisons, but the reality is that most prisons still use cell phones, which shows that the Mexican prison system is not complying with relevant laws.
Response of civil society organizations
Civil society organizations and victims have long been working to expose this problem. María Elena Morera, president of Causa en Común, said a lack of political will made it difficult to effectively address the problem. She had used the experience she gained during her husband's kidnapping to serve victims and even received threatening letters.
Isabel Miranda de Wallace, leader of another civic group, Stop Kidnapping, added that corruption has seriously affected prison management, making it difficult for prisons to effectively control the illegal activities of prisoners.
Mexico has 200 federal prisons with prison signal jammers, but the situation is unclear about state or municipal prisons. De Wallace pointed out that the effectiveness of the blockers is limited by the autonomy of prison governors, and the law stipulates that the federal government must have control. The lack of official statistics on telephone extortion further complicates the problem.
Francisco Rivas, president of the Observatory, estimated that phone companies account for 95% of total extortion crimes. According to government statistics, there were only 8,042 complaints of telephone extortion in 2013, but the actual number is likely much higher.
Mexico's prison system has installed a large number of cell phone jammers, but due to technical and management problems, the effectiveness of these devices has been greatly reduced. Corruption and insufficient data statistics make it difficult to eradicate telephone extortion and kidnapping problems in prisons.