Prisons to install high-tech scanners to better detect phones
Belgian prisons will install innovative scanners that can better detect mobile phones, De Standaard reports. Mobile phones are often used in prisons to continue illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, or to arrange escape attempts.
Every year, hundreds of mobile phones are found in Belgian prisons. A lot of these phones are very small and made entirely of plastic, so traditional metal detectors cannot catch them.
The Justice department now wants to tackle this problem with the help of new scanners, which are able to detect and track all active mobile phones. The devices emit an alarm signal regardless of whether the phone is on standby, sending a text message, making a call or exchanging mobile data.
The prison system has already issued a tender for six scanners. Next year, another 16 scanners should be added, and eventually every prison should have a scanner.
It’s not clear how many mobile phones are intercepted every year, but according to the annual report of the supervisory committee of the prison in Antwerp, 445 mobile phones were found in that prison alone in 2023. Mobile phones are mostly smuggled in by visitors or thrown over the prison walls.
#FlandersNewsService | Example of the kind of small mobile phone that is often smuggled into prisons © PHOTO PETER HILZ/HOLLANDSE HOOGTE
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