COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) – After years of advocacy and pleading, South Carolina leaders are hopeful the state will soon be able to take definitive action against what law enforcement has described as a top public safety threat: contraband cellphones in prisons.
Prosecutors and investigators have connected the devices with scams, drug trafficking, human trafficking, child abuse, and even attempted murder in the state.
For more than a decade, South Carolina and other states have been begging the federal government to allow them to jam, or block, cellphone signals on prison grounds — an ability the federal government has within its own prisons but refused to give states…