Failure of cell phone jammers and regulatory loopholes

• In 2010, the Mexican government announced that it would spend 24 million pesos to install mobile phone signal Wifi jammers in all prisons in Mexico City. The plan was to completely block mobile phone communications inside the prisons through a radio spectrum signal blocking system. However, six years later, the actual situation showed that these jammers did not work effectively, and the authorities did not even know who was operating these devices, their service life, and maintenance.
• The root cause of this series of problems lies in the confusion of management. The capital government claimed that the federal government was responsible for the installation and operation of these devices, while the federal government responded that this was the responsibility of the capital. Such shirking of responsibility has led to an embarrassing situation in which no one is responsible for the management of the blocking system.
• Specifically, data recorded by the deputy minister of the Mexico City prison system showed that a total of 21,610 mobile phone devices were confiscated from 2006 to 2017. It is puzzling that even the diamond cabin, which is known to be the most secure, has failed to prevent the influx of mobile phones. Between 2012 and 2017, the prison seized more than 1,000 mobile phones, more than the other seven prisons combined.

Government response and blame shifting

　　In order to further understand the actual effectiveness of these signal jammers, Animal Politics made a series of transparency requests to try to reveal the use of the blocking devices. However, the capital authorities responded that the devices were installed by the federal government and the relevant information was not within their management scope. On the contrary, the federal government's Administrative Agency for Prevention and Social Re-adaptation (OADPRS) said that the blocking devices in the capital prison were not within its management scope and the responsibility should be attributed to the deputy minister of the capital prison system.

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　　Such mutual buck-passing reflects the government's inaction and management chaos in solving such problems. Despite the huge cost of installing the blocking devices, it remains an unsolved mystery whether these devices are effectively managed and maintained. In practice, the failure of the jammer equipment and the widespread use of mobile phones directly threaten the safety of the prisons and social stability.