Spanish prison cells are stop being places of isolation for the prisoners. More and more prisoners have cell phones that they brought illegally and with which they can connect with the outside world.
In many prisons, these devices have become so standardized that there are even inmates who have the luxury of share your daily life on social networks.
There are already those who call them “pre-soinfluencers”. They take advantage of the fact that “in all the prisons in the country inhibitors are obsolete and are not capable of interfering with the 4G and 5G connection of modern phones.”
Several videos posted on Tiktok by inmates, recorded from the rooms of different prisons.
This is how he denounces it to EL ESPAÑOL Joaquín Leyva, spokesperson for the Group of the Administration of Penitentiary Institutions (ACAIP).
And given the great proliferation of cell phoneseven the careful work of prison officials does not make it possible to locate and seize all the devices.
Francesc, is one of these professionals, and works as spokesperson for the Catalan association Blava tidal preson. According to its latest data, there have been “800 seizures for the approximately 8,000 inmates in this community.
This, according to the official, indicates that “there is at least one in ten prisoners has access to these devices. And these figures are not representative because they do not take into account the number of cell phones that cannot be discovered and removed. »
“Among those who create content on social networks there are different cases detected. “They regularly use their cell phones to create their daily ‘Tiktok’ recounting their stay in prison in a somewhat informative way.”
ASK.- To what extent do prisoners download content from the Internet?
ANSWER.- It’s a common dynamic that extends to all penitentiary centers, in each one we find an inmate who does this.
The Administration monitors to try to find these profiles and follow their publications to detect them and carry out the research. But every day, videos of this type are published on one site or another.
We have sometimes spotted videos posted online to question the work of civil servants, recorded during an intervention.
It is indeed one-off, but if the number of cell phones increases, we may find ourselves with increasingly compromising situations: detainees record the areas of the center to facilitate their escape, introduce drugs using drones, exchange information with the outside world, etc.
Visible on Tiktok
To locate the digital content of these inmates, it is not necessary to browse deep into social networks. For example, simply search the word “prison” on Tiktok.
Most of the content consists of photographs and short videos taken inside the cells: exercise, play video gamescounting the remaining days of sentence…
In one of the videos this newspaper was able to locate, an inmate shows the food he has inside his cabin: “Locked up, but thank God nothing is missing“, writing.
A room in a penitentiary center.
In another, another inmate films the inside of the cell and the courtyard from his window. Explain that it is one of his last nights “here.”
Most of this content is not posted from accounts where the user’s identity cannot be verified. In fact, in many cases, they do not hesitate to expose themselves in front of the camera, show your face or pose shirtless.
The spokesperson for the Penitentiary Institutions Administration Corps Group (ACAIP), Joaquín Leyva, explains that the majority of these “prisoner influencers” are those who are inmates. with the third degree conditionthat is to say, they live in a regime of semi-liberty.
“In open sections or social integration centers, where this type of detainee is found, Yes, it is allowed to have a cell phone.. What is not authorized is the use that is made of it.”
“The biggest problem comes from the inmates who have been using them for inside the penitentiary center“.
Indeed, the ACAIP spokesperson specifies that “a telephone transfer between third degree prisoners and those in closed regime, because they often interact in open sections, where the former are authorized to have these devices.
Access to the body
But this is not the only way in which prisoners manage to bring these devices into the centers.
According to Joaquín Leyva, one of the most common methods is to obtain them “visually, through someone who introduces them into the hidden center in a body cavity, notably vaginally“.
“In this way they manage to seize small phones“And once inside the prison, locating them is a challenge for the authorities.
Q.– How do inmates hide their phones?
A.- They are very ingenious, mwe are often surprised whennWhen we locate a device because of how it was hidden. They carry out engineering work with sardine cans, empty them without opening them and store them inside, or inside others. devices electronics, like the basics of a flex or the system of a fan…
On other occasions we have located them behind lavabbones of its cell, which are tiled. They remove one, they remove what’s behind it and the phone fits into that space.
They then simulate the sealant with toothpaste, so that it is virtually undetectable except upon close inspection.
Criminal continuity
The data is not encouraging. According to a report established by the ACAIP-UGT, between 2020 and 2024 12,882 phones were seized in Spanish penitentiary centers.
Last year alone, a total of 2,884 devices; In practice, as many as in 2023 (2,910 retirees), but 151 more than in 2022 and 669 more than in 2021.
Although these figures represent a challenge that goes beyond simple content creation on social networks.
The president of the Professional Association of Prison Officers (APFP), Gonzalo Arboledas, warns that “the problem is not just with cell phones which are used to publish content.
“In prison, these technologies are used in another context in which yes you can continue to commit crimes“.
Arboledas points out that “there are cases of penitentiary centers that have been informed that a woman victim of abuse has received telephone threats by his attacker, who is in prison.
All prison officials agree on this point. The spokesperson for ACAIP, Joaquín Leyva, specifies that these devices also generate “a business, a black trade against cell phone control and calls, leading to debt problems.
Use of drones
On the other hand, in the absence of updated inhibitors, prison authorities are reporting the appearance of drones that they fly over the penitentiary centers.
Using these devices, inmates can take larger phones, such as iPhones, into their cells. even drugs.
The recording of a drone accessing a penitentiary center to introduce goods into an inmate’s cell.
EL ESPAÑOL has accessed a video that shows the ease with which one of these flying machines flies over the interior of a prison with a cable on which it was transporting a certain type of merchandise so that an inmate came to pick her up at her window.
An official anonymously expressed his concern to EL ESPAÑOL because “in the same way that telephones or narcotics are used to bring prisoners to prisoners, they could “sneak” weapons small, like pistols and machine guns.
In these cases, all sources consulted for this report agree on the urgency to install updated inhibitors which prevent the use of cell phones with the normality with which they are used more and more frequently.
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