“People don’t understand… Saying ‘What are you doing giving inmates phones in the facility?’” said Union County Sheriff David Taylor. “They [inmates] purchase the phones for a $100.”

Sheriff Taylor says his office no longer runs the jail but has been worked to bring this CellMate Mobile service to its inmates through a company called Lattice Incorporated.

He says inmates buy the phones in the commissary and relatives can add minutes for the inmates to use from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

“For them to make phone calls. They’re able to text from these phones,” Sheriff Taylor said. “They don’t have any access to the outside world other than what we allow them to have.”

He says the devices do come with restrictions, like the inability to contact alleged victims.

“They can’t access Facebook, SnapChat, none of that stuff they can use. They can’t get on the internet – period,” said Sheriff Taylor. “But we’re still able to monitor. We can view their text messages. We can listen to their phone calls.”

So why these new phones? The sheriff says idle inmates can mean trouble.