REPORT - INMATES USE PHONES FOR CRIME

WASHINGTON - A significant number of federal inmates use prison
telephones to arrange murders, traffic in drugs or commit fraud, and
the Bureau of Prisons has failed to curb the abuse, an inspector
general concluded Thursday.

``Inmate abuse of prison telephones appears to be widespread,''
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich concluded.
Despite learning of the problem in 1976, the Bureau of Prisons ``has
taken only limited and insufficient corrective efforts.''

``We found various cases in which inmates retained full telephone
privileges even after they were convicted of a crime involving the use
of prison telephones,'' Bromwich's report said, adding that the Bureau
of Prisons must ``take immediate and meaningful actions.''

Bromwich proposed limiting telephone privileges for all inmates,
having guards monitor more calls and imposing harsher discipline on
abusers.

Bureau of Prisons spokesman Todd Craig said the report had ``some good
suggestions'' that are being reviewed.

``But we have taken steps to address problems, and a majority of
inmates do not abuse the system,'' he said. Federal prisons allow
calls to ``help inmates maintain family ties so they have a job and a
home when they get out and don't have to return to crime,'' he said.

Telephone privileges have expanded dramatically since the 1970s when
inmates were permitted only one call every three months and it was
placed by guards. Now most federal inmates can make as many calls as
they can pay for or get outsiders to accept charges for.

A survey of U.S. attorneys found 117 federal prosecutions involving
prison phone use in recent years, including 11 for murder or attempted
murder arranged by inmates over prison phones, Bromwich reported.

Ten inmates were prosecuted for plotting to threaten witnesses and 12
for trying to influence witnesses. Another 25 cases prosecuted inmates
for fraud, often involving credit cards. One inmate directed a
fraudulent employment matching service scheme that involved $1.6
million. Another swindled trucking companies out of more than $100,000.

BOP's Craig noted that 40 of the 117 federal inmates prosecuted were
housed in state or local prisons at the time of their phone abuse. He
said the 77 cases growing out of phone use in federal prisons
represent one one-hundredth of one percent of the 400,000 inmates who
moved through federal prisons during the three years the inspector
general audited them.

In one egregious case, Baltimore drug dealer Anthony Jones used phones
at the prison in Allenwood, Pa., to order associates outside to murder
two grand jury witnesses against him. One was killed and the other
shot several times.

Even after Jones was convicted of murder and attempted murder and
sentenced to life in prison for that in May 1998, he retained full
phone privileges and his calls were not monitored, Bromwich found.
Jones' access was not restricted until Bromwich's investigators asked
about it in July 1998.

``BOP's limited attempts to monitor inmate calls are virtually useless
in preventing inmates from committing crimes,'' Bromwich concluded.

Guards monitor only 3.5 percent of tens of thousands of prisoners'
calls made each day, Bromwich found. All calls except prearranged ones
to an inmate's attorney are recorded, but they are rarely reviewed
later.

In visits to nine prisons, Bromwich's investigators found excessive
phone use by 15 inmates, who each spent more than 66 hours a month on
the phone.

Notorious Washington, D.C., drug dealer Rayful Edmond told
investigators he arranged drug deals on the phone almost every day
from the penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., and held conference calls to
Colombia, South America. Edmond said he knew most calls weren't
monitored and expected only a short restriction of phone privileges if
caught.

But Bromwich did say that 74 percent of inmates used the phone less
than 5 hours a month. Most prisons have two pay phones per 150 inmates
who have to line up for them after their 7 hours of work each day,
Craig said.