By Lieutenant Rudy Diaz
Central California Women’s Facility and Investigative Services Unit staff recently donated 442 contraband phones to the Cell Phones for Soldiers Program. The phones have been confiscated and collected over a short period of time as a result of searches, investigations and use of the CDCR K9 units.
Cell Phones for Soldiers is a nonprofit organization, founded in 2004, by two teenagers, who started off with just $21 of their own money. Since then they, have provided more than 300 million minutes of talk time to our troops.
Contraband cell phone usage is a problem CDCR takes very seriously. Cell phone use by inmates poses a security risk by circumventing the monitoring processes in prisons. Modern cell phones can record video images and conversations as well as provide a means of committing internet crimes.
Warden Janell Espinoza and Chief Deputy Warden Mike Pallares approved the collection and distribution to the troops on behalf of facility.