U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) cosponsored a bill to worsen the penalty for smuggling cellphones into federal prisons.
On Wednesday, June 10, the Senate passed the Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati Stopping Prison Contraband Act, or S.736, to enhance safety and accountability in federal prisons by elevating the penalty for smuggling or possessing a cellphone, classified as contraband, from a misdemeanor to a felony.
The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). The bill was named after a lieutenant in Puerto Rico who was murdered while working in a prison in Guaynabo. The five criminals involved in his murder later admitted they targeted Albarati as a direct result of his repeated seizures of the prisoners’ contraband, including cellphones.
The penalty for possessing a cellphone in a Mississippi prison is already punishable up to 15 years, explaining why Hyde-Smith was so in favor of its passage. Before this bill, in federal prisons, the same penalty carried a maximum of one year. Now, it will be as high as five.
“Contraband cellphones in federal prisons pose a risk to guards and other prison personnel, and in the worst cases, to the victims of crime orchestrated using cellphones from within prison walls. Those supplying the phones are just as much to blame, and this bill ups the price they’ll pay,” Hyde-Smith said in a statement. “I’m pleased this bill has been passed now to give the House time to pass it and get it to the President.”
Hyde-Smith also cosponsored the Cellphone Jamming Reform Act, which would allow prisons to use jamming device systems to further crack down on contraband cellphone usage.
According to Hyde-Smith, she cosponsored both of the bills as part of an ongoing effort to crack down on the widespread use of cellphones in both federal and state prisons in hopes of limiting prisoners from continuing to conduct illegal activities within prison walls.
The Lieutenant Osvaldo Albarati Stopping Prison Contraband Act now heads to the House for consideration.
