Columbia officials say prison inmates are flushing handmade weapons, underwear and various other debris down their toilets, causing a nearby sewer pump to break and costing taxpayers millions. WJBF News Channel 6’s SC Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, has more.

South Carolina’s Department of Corrections has received a big boost in its efforts to get the Federal Communications Commission to allow it to jam cell phone signals within prisons. Corrections director Jon Ozmint announced Monday that 26 other states, plus the Philadelphia Prison System and the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, have signed South Carolina’s petition to the FCC. Right now, it’s illegal to jam cell phone signals. South Carolina’s petition to the FCC is asking it to make an exception for prisons. WJBF News Channel 6’s SC Capitol reporter Robert Kittle has more.

A bus carrying visitors to upstate New York prisons has rolled onto its side and plowed into a rock ledge on a highway in the Adirondack mountains, killing a woman pinned underneath and hurting nine others.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections is running a multi-million dollar deficit, but it was able to buy 1,200 converter boxes and some new antennas to make the conversion to digital televisions. The switch cost $80,000. WJBF News Channel 6’s SC Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, has more.

President Barack Obama says some of the terror suspects held at Guantanamo will be brought to prisons in the United States, despite fierce opposition in Congress. Speaking at the National Archives, Obama said U.S. prison facilities are tough enough to house even the most dangerous inmates. He criticized what he said is an effort to politicize the issue, and said he won’t do anything to endanger the American people.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections has a new tool to fight crime from within its prison walls.  It’s a new technology called cell phone jamming. WJBF News Channel 6’s Capitol reporter, Robert Kittle, has the story.