The Latest: Officers charged with helping inmates get phones

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The Latest on South Carolina’s efforts to keep cellphones from being used illegally by inmates (all times local):

5:15 p.m.

Two former officers at a maximum-security South Carolina prison have been charged with helping inmates get illegal cellphones behind bars.

Records obtained by The Associated Press show Jamar Brown and Taylor Johnson were arrested Tuesday and charged with misconduct in office.

Both men were officers at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Authorities say they let inmates go outside the facility and retrieve packages that contained contraband materials including cellphones, tools and tobacco.

Corrections Department officials say it’s incredibly dangerous for inmates to have access to cellphones in prison because they can have unfettered access with the outside world and continue their criminal activity.

Arrest papers listed no attorney for either man. Officials say they each resigned from the Corrections Department earlier this year.

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11:20 a.m.

South Carolina’s prisons are making plans for a new technology to combat illegal inmate cellphones behind bars.

The State Fiscal Accountability Authority on Tuesday approved a request of more than $20,000 to fund a high-tech system to track down cellphones being used in a handful of prisons that house some of the state’s most dangerous inmates.

Corrections Director Bryan Stirling says that money will fund plans for a system that uses cellphone towers to locate illegal inmate cellphones. His agency has the more than $1.3 million needed to implement the program.

The department has been seeking ways to curb cellphone use by inmates. Stirling says the smuggled phones allow inmates to contact people outside prison walls to continue criminal activities or to find out information about corrections workers.

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Kinnard can be reached at https://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP . Read more of her work at https://bigstory.ap.org/content/meg-kinnard/