COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - After years of advocacy and pleading, South Carolina leaders are hopeful the state will soon be able to take definitive action against what law enforcement has described as a top public safety threat: contraband cellphones in prisons.

Prosecutors and investigators have connected the devices with scams, drug trafficking, human trafficking, child abuse, and even attempted murder in the state.

For more than a decade, South Carolina and other states have been begging the federal government to allow them to jam, or block, cellphone signals on prison grounds — an ability the federal government has within its own prisons but refused to give states.

Now, it is open to the possibility for the first time.

“I think once the evidence is out there and once it’s exposed about

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