The jamming of cell phones in prisons is a recurring topic in the news. But the neutralization of the waves is a difficult exercise to carry out in reality. For 2019, an envelope of 20 million euros will be devoted to it.
This is Sisyphus work: regularly, the prison administration must deploy and reinforce its cell phone jammer devices to prevent detainees from contacting the outside world with smartphones that accomplices illegally bring into prisons. Indeed, some systems were only effective against second-generation (2G) technologies.
But today, 3G and 4G are now commonplace. And the 5G already appears on the horizon.
It is for this reason that investments in this area never really allow to see the end. We must not only invest in prisons that are not equipped (only 110 establishments were at the 1st of January 2018, out of the 188 detention centers in France, or 60% of the housing stock), but we must also level the oldest facilities.
This is what Nicole Belloubet, the Minister of Justice, has just explained to a senator who asked for an update on the installation of jammers in penal institutions. In a response published in the Official Journal on 29 November, the Garde des Sceaux indicates that a budget of 19.9 million euros is planned in 2019 for this purpose. In comparison, the envelope was 14.7 million euros in 2018.
Priority will be given to centers “housing the most sensitive detainees or those most exposed to mobile phone traffic,” it explains. Paris-la-Santé, Osny, two establishments located in Île-de-France, and Vendin-le-Vieil, in the North, where a certain Redoine Faïd is incarcerated. The neutralization will be effective “in the future all the commercial frequencies”, it is specified.