IN just over 24 months since the passage of legislation to facilitate tighter control of prohibited articles such as electronic devices being transported in and out of correctional facilities, 10 people have been charged and prosecuted with six pleading guilty.

The increasing use of telecommunication devices by inmates to maintain contact with criminal networks outside of the confines of correctional institutions has seen incarcerated criminals — some of whom are reputed gang leaders — influencing criminal gangs and ordering killings from behind bars.

According to data obtained from the Court Administration Division(CAD), between January 2021 and March 2024, three people — two males and one female — were taken before the Corporate Area Criminal Court for breaches of the Corrections (Amendment) Act 2021.

Two of those charged had the charges dismissed for reasons not disclosed to the Jamaica Observer, while one pleaded guilty.

In the meantime, four people were prosecuted in St Catherine Parish Court with three pleading guilty and one choosing to go to trial.

One case brought against a female in Manchester Parish Court was dismissed while in another case brought before Clarendon Parish Court, the male accused is set for sentencing after he pleaded guilty. One case involving another male is before St Ann Parish Court.

The first person to feel the fangs of the Corrections (Amendment) Act, 2021 was a 37-year-old inmate at the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre.

The prisoner, a labourer of Salt Spring, Green Island in Hanover, was charged with possession of a prohibited electronic communication device after a search of his cell on February 17, 2022 unearthed two cellular phones and cellphone accessories.

The Act — which amended the Corrections Act of 1985, as well as the Correctional Institution (Adult Correctional Centre) Rules, 1991 — was tabled and passed by both Houses of Parliament in 2021.

The legislation introduced several new offences to include having access to, use of, or possession of an electronic communication device or computer in a correctional institution; tampering with any electronic communication device or computer by an inmate; and an inmate transmitting, or causing to be transmitted, without authorisation, any data, using an electronic communication device or computer.

Other offences include an inmate intercepting or causing the interception of any function of an electronic communication device or computer; the use of a computer or electronic communication device by an individual to prejudice the safety or security of any person inside or outside of a correctional centre, the safe custody or security of an inmate, or the good order or security of a correctional centre; and the unauthorised access to, or use, or possession of a prohibited article in a correctional institution.

Under the legislation, which was passed to impose not just heavier fines, but provide for prison time for officers who are found to be in breach, offenders convicted in the parish courts can be fined up to $3 million or be imprisoned for three years, while a second or subsequent offence will attract a fine of $5 million or up to five years imprisonment.

Those convicted in the circuit court can be sentenced to a maximum seven years for a first offence, and 15 years for a second or subsequent offence.

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang in 2021 told the House of Representatives that the use of contraband items by prisoners has been widespread with 5,431 phones seized in prisons between 2016-2017 and 2019-2020.

In 2017 Chang announced that all correctional officers and recruits are to be polygraphed as part of new measures aimed at reducing the smuggling of cellphones and other contraband into correctional facilities.

That announcement coincided with increased concern about the recording of music by inmates in maximum security facilities.

Only this month one highly placed law enforcer told the Observer that a number of high-profile prison inmates have reportedly taken to swallowing their subscriber identity module (SIM) cards to prevent prison authorities from getting hold of their devices and turning them over to law enforcers for forensic examination, which would reveal their contacts, conversations, and plots.

Responding to questions from the Observer about the new methods of evasion, Chang said, “The challenge of controlling communication [from persons] is a big one. We are looking at how we can use technology to deal with that, but those high-value criminals are very creative and all kinds of creative means are being used. [But,] we are getting better at managing them, and we have been able to prevent a lot of their instructions going out — but we still have a way to go.”

In the meantime, there have been several instances in which intelligence from confiscated cellular phones, when entered into evidence during trials, have led to convictions.

Last month alleged leader of the Westmoreland-based King Valley Gang Derval Williams, otherwise called Lukie, and his sidekick Christon Grant were declared “guilty of conspiring” — via cellular phones — to murder a Crown witness while behind bars at Horizon Adult Remand Centre in 2020, the same year they were let off on anti-gang charges.

In June 2020 correctional officers, during searches of the cells occupied by Williams and Grant, discovered cellular phones which the men claimed belonged to them. The phone claimed by Williams was discovered in the ventilation area at the back of the cell, while the handset claimed by Grant was found in the groove beneath a five-gallon water bottle, held in place by a bar of soap. The men were charged under a four-count indictment, with one count each of conspiring to murder and concealment of a prohibited article (two cellular phones).

A digital forensics expert brought by the prosecution in April, when the case began, outlined evidence to prove that the confiscated phones belonged to the men.

In one of several voice notes played into the records of the tribunal, a voice identified by two Crown witnesses as belonging to Williams was heard saying he had received intelligence that a particular top-flight female investigator had visited the targeted witness on three occasions and that she was supposedly trying to shore up evidence against them.

Supreme Court judge, Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell, in her summation and verdict, said the court accepted the evidence that there was communication between Williams and Grant, on their respective phones, by way of text messages and
WhatsApp voice notes. The sentencing of the men has been set for the next court term, which begins in September.

Recordings of conversations between alleged members of the St Catherine-based Klansman gang and convicted leader of the One Don faction, Andre “Blackman” Bryan, while he was behind bars, played a critical role in that trial, which began in 2021 and concluded in 2023, when 15 of 33 accused were found guilty of crimes ranging from murder, illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, to membership in a criminal organisation.