Mobile phone scanners on way to prisons

IRISH PRISONS are to be equipped with new “chairs” that detect metal objects hidden in the body. The move comes as new figures show 431 mobile phones have been seized in jails so far this year.

The Body Orifice Security Scanner or “Boss” chair, which uses sensors that beep when metal is detected, costs about €5,000 and is to be rolled out in the next six months, according to the Department of Justice.

The chair scans body cavities while a person is clothed, as well as the lower abdominal area and the lower leg and foot. It is currently being piloted in Cloverhill Remand Prison and is “working effectively” a spokesman said.

Department figures show that up to March 20th this year a total of 431 phones were seized, compared to 2,047 for all of last year.

Figures for Cloverhill show 128 phones were seized last year and 10 up to March 20th this year.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said “a large percentage of these seizures are not directly from prisoners but are instead retrieved at entry point or before they get to” prisoners.

In Portlaoise, 41 phones were detected last year and 19 so far this year. In Mountjoy, 580 were taken in 2008 and 137 so far this year. In Limerick, 292 phones were seized last year and 87 up to March 20th.

Director general of the Irish Prison Service Brian Purcell told an Oireachtas committee on Thursday that the thick walls of some of the State’s oldest prisons “make it difficult to achieve blockage at a cost you can afford”.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan, who asked a parliamentary question about mobile phone seizures, said a problem with technology “is just the latest excuse. The last excuse was that mobile blocking technology could not be used in Portlaoise Prison because it would affect the hospital, and that problem has now been surmounted.” Nobody, he said, should be allowed to use a mobile phone in prison.

Mr Ahern said "only governor grades are permitted to enter prisons with a mobile phone". Mr Flanagan disputed this. "In excess of 70 designated persons in Portlaoise, including contractors and maintenance personnel use mobile phones." He said "it is almost two years since John Daly made that phone call to RTÉ's Livelinefrom Portlaoise . . . The Minister for Justice announced an initiative that was going to stop illegal mobile phones being used – and look at the figures."