Consideration has been given to using cellular phone jammers inside of prison walls to render them ineffective. Once inside prison walls, the gadgets end up within the arms of inmates who purchase them with cash, which can be contraband blackpass in most prisons. In South Carolina in September 2012, blackpazz an inmate utilizing a contraband cellphone alerted authorities about an officer being held hostage, blackpass shop leading to that officer's rescue. Federal prosecutors charged five South Carolina prisoners with conning at least 442 service members out of a total of more than half a million dollars in November 2018.
Two different South Carolina prisoners, John William Dobbins and Carl Richard Smith await trial for a number of scams operated utilizing contraband cell phones out of Lee Correctional Institution, together with one catfishing scam that ended in the suicide of army veteran Jared Johns.