WALT SPECHT: Crack down on phone access for prison scammers

I apologize to my family and neighbors for being such a total failure.

I apparently missed jury duty, and unless I wire money to an address I will have a warrant sworn out for me. I thought I reached the age where I don’t have to serve on juries.

I failed to pay my power bill and, unless I wire them funds, they will turn my electricity off. This is despite the fact I pay my power bill ahead.

I apparently pledged to donate to a sheriff’s charity and failed to send a check. If I don’t wire them money, the road deputies will be on the lookout for me. Funny how fast they hung up when I asked for their POST certification number.

Then, there is that Arab prince that wants to donate to my favorite charity if I would only forward him my bank account number.

That is from only the past month. I can’t believe these scams are allowed to continue. A few months ago, there was an article that many originated in our prisons, utilizing cell phones they weren’t supposed to have.

Once more, it is time for the FCC to legalize cell phone blockers for an area around a prison. Time for all visitors, lawyers included, to have to pass through a clean room when they enter jail grounds. Time for guards and staff to have to enter through clean rooms.

For those not in the know, a clean room is where you remove your clothes, all of them. They are scanned and searched, and you put them back on on the other side. Our prisons are too open, as proven by the amount of contraband that enters them. An inconvenience to those visiting outweighs the crime this contraband allows to continue.

Even if caught in a scam, what can the courts add to a life sentence? So, if we can’t deal with the perpetrators, we must deal with their access to the ability to obtain the supplies to carry it out.

WALT SPECHT

Leesburg