FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Contact: Ben Conroy
(984) 383-9038
RALEIGH – Today, Attorney General Jeff Jackson co-led a bipartisan coalition of 31 Attorneys General in sending a letter urging Congress to pass legislation allowing states to deploy cell phone jamming systems in jails and prisons. The legislation aims to disrupt inmates’ ability to commit crimes using smuggled cell phones, by giving governments the authority to deploy targeted jamming systems within jails and prisons while avoiding disruption of emergency signals like 9-1-1.
“North Carolina has seen how much harm someone can cause by using a cell phone in prison or jail,” said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. “Incarcerated people can use these contraband cell phones to keep breaking the law and put innocent people and law enforcement officers in danger on the outside. This bipartisan legislation would help curb drug trafficking, fraud, witness intimidation, violence and other offenses while making North Carolina’s justice systems and communities safer. We’re asking Congress to help make this law.”
The coalition’s letter to Congress highlights how inmates exploit contraband phones to:
- Direct drug trafficking operations.
- Orchestrate violence inside and outside prisons and jails.
- Run sophisticated fraud schemes preying on vulnerable citizens.
- Intimidate witnesses and terrorize victims’ families.
- Plot escape attempts that endanger law enforcement and the public.
North Carolina is all too familiar with the danger that an incarcerated prisoner can bring to our communities. In 2016, a gang member incarcerated at Polk Correctional Institution in Butner used a cell phone to orchestrate the kidnapping of a prosecutor’s father. Federal law currently bans states and local governments from using cell phone jamming technology, leaving correctional facilities defenseless against an escalating threat.
“This is not a partisan issue—it is a matter of public safety,” the letter stresses. A 2020 survey of 20 state corrections departments uncovered 25,840 contraband cell phones in a single year, a stark reminder of the scale of the crisis.
Attorney General Jackson co-led this letter alongside the Attorneys General of Georgia, Tennessee, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The letter was also joined by the Attorneys General of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
You can view the letter here.
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