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The black market price for a bottom-of-the-line cell phone inside Ohio prisons is about $500. Prison officials say the inmates often want cell phones to conduct criminal activity. Vinko Kucinic, a security coordinator for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC), says cell phones pose a significant threat to prison security. “Prison gang members or an inmate with a cell phone is a bad combination,” Kucinic said. “They can be used to threaten, intimidate witnesses and victims. They can be used to facilitate and plot criminal activity from inside the fences. They can also be used to run their gang organization.” Corrections officers are confiscating cell phones at a rate nearly three times that of just three years ago. In 2012, officers confiscated 248 cell phones, up from 155 in 2011 and 88 in 2010. At Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon, Investigator Mark Stegemoller patrols for cell phone contraband with his partner, Dyna, a two-year-old Dutch Shepherd. Dyna is trained to sniff out a phone’s ithium ion battery. “The latest intel we have received from inmates is that you won’t get a cell phone for less than $500 and that’s your cheapest phone, your cheapest TracFone that you can get at Walmart for $20,” Stegemoller said. Incident reports from prisons around the state detail how cell phones are smuggled into the facilities. Cell phones were found in false bottoms of boxes of oatmeal and macaroni and cheese. In some cases phones are stuffed inside footballs and thrown over fences into the prison yard. Strip searches have turned up cell phones in body cavities. Kucinic says cell phones are highly coveted by prison gang members who want to control things. With cell phones, he says, gang members have power and control. Kucinic says prison gangs use phones to order assaults on other inmates, sex offenders use cell phones to access social networking sites and, in theory, inmates could use cell phones to gain a tactical advantage against officers during a prison disturbance. Prison officials say it’s a violation of prison rules for inmates to have cell phones but not a violation of Ohio law. Inmates typically face some time in segregation. Some states have taken steps to make possession of a cell phone by inmates a felony. Kucinic says he’s not aware of any lawmaker interest in changing Ohio law but says he believes a criminal penalty might be helpful in their fight to control the contraband.android phones under 200 The state is planning to add portable cell phone detectors at each of its prison. The full body scanners are designed to detect cell phones even when they’re hidden in a body cavity. State lawmakers will consider the department’s request to spend $311,000 for the scanners at a meeting of the Controlling Board on Monday.