Prisoners are to get landlines in their cells instead of mobile phones which were used to arrange gangland crimes.
Handsets were handed out to inmates to keep them connected with loved ones during the pandemic.
But they were abused by thousands of cons who inserted illicit sim cards to make clandestine calls.
The SPS and Scottish Government confirmed the controversial taxpayer-funded phones are being “phased out” and will be recovered from inmates in the coming months.
But a multi-million pound programme of installing landlines for cons will be rolled out, after prison chiefs found jail phones brought benefits such as improved prisoner behaviour.
Opposition MSPs yesterday called for the full cost of the landline roll-out to be revealed and demanded assurances the new system will not repeat “serious past mistakes” with mobile phones.
The mobile scheme handed thousands of devices to prisoners in 2020, with limited call minutes and text and internet usage blocked on the prison-approved numbers. But smuggled sims allowed these restrictions to be bypassed.
In March it was revealed Scottish cons had misused the devices more than 7000 times.Last year, jurors heard how Robert Warnock, 26, helped arrange a Greenock firebomb murder plot targeting rivals from his cell by taking advantage of a prison handset while banged up for attempted murder.
Six men involved in the plot were jailed for a total of 64 years in November.
Scotland’s youngest ever female killer had four months added to her life sentence in October over mobile phone cards stashed in her cell at Polmont young offenders’ institution, near Falkirk.
Jolene Doherty, 22, is serving a minimum 17 years for knifing Conner Cowper, 18, in Holytown, Lanarkshire, in 2018.
Meanwhile, warder Heather McKenzie, 31, was jailed for more than six years in February this year for smuggling cocaine and a sim to murderer Zak Malavin, 30, in HMP Shotts.
Prison chiefs have started fitting in-cell phones, including at Barlinnie in Glasgow, and cons have been told of the imminent removal of mobiles.
A public contract published this week revealed the SPS has forked out £1.3million for a “cloud based PIN phone service” which includes the installation of “analogue in-cell phones”, support and maintenance.
But the contract does not reflect the true cost of the roll-out, which the SPS could not confirm yesterday.
Scottish Tory justice spokesman Russell Findlay said: “The SNP Government’s free and supposedly tamper-proof mobile phones for
prisoners were quickly hacked and used to commit crimes including drug deals and the firebombing of family homes.
“It is vital they don’t repeat these serious past mistakes and tell the public what they are doing to ensure in-cell phones will not also be abused.Given the chronic state of much of Scotland’s cash-starved prison estate, they must also be clear about the full cost of this project and explain why this is considered an appropriate use of public money.”
The SPS said: “In the coming months, we will be introducing a new, hard-wired, in-cell telephony system to the prison estate.
“This will be governed using the same robust security measures which are already in place for all telephone communications.
The Scottish Government said the in-cell service would launch by the summer and would allow the SPS to continue to record and monitor calls.
It said: “Prison-issued mobile phones, which were introduced to support contact, including with key services, such as the Samaritans, during the Covid pandemic, will be recovered on a phased basis over the coming months.”
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