Prague, July 25 (CTK) – A special sniffer-dog unit, unique in Europe, will start helping Czech prison wardens uncover cell phones that inmates may illegally keep and use to pursue unlawful activities such as planning an escape, ordering drug supplies or intimidating witnesses, daily Pravo writes Wednesday.
The dog unit is to start operation at the end of the year.
In 2017, wardens caught a total 606 inmates keeping cell phones.
To uncover the phones, wardens use a detector that can find only phones that are switched on, however.
Four years ago, prison dog handlers came up with the idea that specially trained dogs might also help uncover phones, in addition to drugs.
Tests showed that some phone parts are made of materials which dogs can recognise and detect.
“The dogs mostly succeed in finding the phone body, or its interior part made of pressed components,” Daniel Lusk, who heads the dog training centre, has told Pravo.
He said the first dog to undergo the training reached excellent results in tests, uncovering 65 out of 72 hidden phones. However, it had to be sent off because its nature was incompatible with the prison environment.
Another trained dog, a Belgian shepherd, has also been a success, and later this year, it is to be joined by further three Belgian shepherds and a border collie that are undergoing a three-month intensive training now.
Based on their own experiences, Czech prison dog handlers have been teaching their counterparts from Hungary, Poland and elsewhere to train sniffer dogs in detecting cell phones, the daily writes.
The main advantage of the dogs is that they also uncover switched-off phones and show the caches.
The present detectors only indicate that a switched-on phone is in a room, and the wardens subsequently have to find it.
Petr Suk, director of the Jirice prison, central Bohemia, said the situation with cell phones among inmates is not critical in Czech jails, although a total of 270 of them have been uncovered this year, which means one phone a day on average.
The number of such phones has risen recently since many inmates smuggle them in from their working places outside the prison, and also because the checks have become more consistent and effective.
Wardens often uncover illegal cell phones in sophisticated caches such as inside floors, in holes made in walls, inside radio and TV sets etc.
Phones are banned among prisoners, who can only use the official telephone boxes in prisons under strict conditions, Pravo writes.
