Until about two months ago, each wing, or "pod," of the Oklahoma County jail was virtually indistinguishable from the others. Same bland walls, same stern guards, same small cells — a masterpiece of minimalism. Now, though, pod 8-D has become the most prestigious address in the jail. "We have inmates throughout the jail ... asking to go to that pod," said detention officer Jason Ledford.

The reason is simple: Over a one-week period in mid-May, 50 telephones were installed in an equal number of cells in 8-D.The phones have no exposed cords or handsets, and are securely attached to the cell walls, forcing inmates to squat and press their heads awkwardly against the encased receivers in order to talk.

The inconvenience doesn’t seem to bother them. There are more than 2,200 prisoners in the jail; only 100 of them have access to the new phones. The rest have to share six phones per pod in the common rooms. For inmates, the new phones are a link to loved ones and a rare bit of freedom in a carefully controlled environment designed to warehouse accused criminals until they stand trial. They are also a reward — those who live in the 50 cells equipped with phones will be moved to other cells if they violate jail rules.

For jail officials, the phones are a win-win proposition. They said the phones encourage inmates to behave, and the jail’s 46 percent take of the phone earnings will help defray the expenses of jail necessities such as blankets, pillows and clothing.

The phones were installed by Value Added Communications of Fort Worth, Texas, as a subcontractor for Dallas-based CTI, a company that has a contract with 113 facilities in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system.

Inmates can only make collect calls from the phones. The people they connect with hear an automated message warning them they are receiving a call from an inmate at the jail. Carson said the automated message should protect businesses from a phone scam popular with inmates in other locations.

In April, Attorney General Drew Edmondson issued a warning about the "90# scam" — a con game in which a caller claims to be employed by AT&T and asks for help in testing telephone lines. The caller convinces unwary listeners to dial a certain combination of keys that allows him to charge long-distance calls to the listeners’ accounts. The scam does not work with residential accounts. "That scam cannot be done from here," Carson said. Also, individual numbers can be blocked from the system, preventing inmates from making nuisance calls. If jailers have reason to suspect an inmate is using a phone for an illegal purpose, they can make arrangements to monitor future calls. "All we would have to do is present probable cause to a judge, and he could issue a court order, and we could monitor," Carson said.

Soon, however, inmates will be able to make calls directly — bypassing the collect call safeguards — by purchasing prepaid airtime out of their trust accounts, which are generally used to buy personal items at the jail store. Calling costs will be the same, but calling privileges could be enhanced — and that could open the door for scams and mischief. "With the trust accounts, they can call anyone they want to unless that number
is blocked," Carson said.

Could they use the phones for illegal activities? "It’s very possible," Carson said. "I’m not going to say it isn’t feasible that something could happen, but now it all depends on the person on the other end of the line accepting the call. I can’t talk about what they might be able to do when they get time in their accounts."

Even so, jailers think the tangible benefits of the phones outweigh potential disadvantages. Their goal is to install phones in every cell below the 10th floor, where maximum security inmates are held. About 100 more phones are expected to be installed in the next month.

"I have thought for two months about what a downside to this could be, and I haven’t found one yet," said Ledford, who is coordinating installation of the phones. Ledford said inmates in 8-D have not destroyed any of the new phones although inmates in the other pods damage about two group phones per week.

Moreover, 8-D has seen no violent incidents at all since the phones were installed. Jail officials estimated problems in general dropped as much as 50 percent.