Brown signs bill to criminalize smuggling cell phones into California prisons

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Thursday morning making it a misdemeanor to smuggle cell phones into California prisons.

The new law carries a punishment of six months in jail and up to $5,000 in fines for each device. Inmates found with contraband phones will lose time credits they earn for good behavior and may have to serve their full sentences as a result.

California’s Department of Corrections confiscated 11,000 cell phones from inmates last year. Prison visitors — men and women, young and old — smuggled them in. So did prison workers.

But they faced minor consequences. The department could ban visitors and fire workers, but the only way to prosecute someone was to prove the cell phone was used to commit a specific crime.

Corrections says inmates have used cell phones to order hits, run drug rings and threaten victims, witnesses and judges.

Gov. Brown also issued a companion executive order today to get Corrections to increase searches of prison staff and inmates and to beef up technology that can block cell phone signals inside the prisons.