Dillon: Fewer illegal cell phones

National Security Minister Edmund Dillon says there has been a reduction in the use of illegal cell phones in prisons. Dillon made this statement as he responded to questions from Opposition senators Wade Mark and Gerald Ramdeen in the Senate on Tuesday.

He said this was the result of the use of grabbers and jammers by prison officers, together with a host of other measures. The minister also said that to reduce the use of illicit phones, “All prisons have been outfitted with monitored telephones for use by the inmates.”

Dillon also disclosed that during his tenure, prison officers have been charged with bringing illegal items into the prisons and some are before the courts. He listed increased searches of visitors, increased searches of vehicles entering and leaving, the use of closed-circuit cameras and more frequent searches of the prison population as some of the other strategies being used to curb illegal activities in the prisons.