Technology has made law enforcement tools better than ever. The problem is that technology also is making it easier for the bad guys to get away with murder -- and all sorts of other crimes. Even when convicted and jailed, inmates somehow get technology to do their bidding.

Take the case of an inmate in Maryland who was on trial for ordering a murder. While in prison, he allegedly used a cell phone to order another murder of a witness who could affect the outcome of the case.

Cell phones and other tech devices have become so small that they are easy to smuggle -- and they have been finding their ways into prisons by the thousands. In the Maryland case, corrections officers subsequently found cell phones in five prison cells.

Battling these types of threats has become that much more challenging, and is in need of technology to help do it. Cell phone jammer technology exists, but except in specific short-term high-priority circumstances, is banned on United States soil. That's where Cell Hound comes in.

Cell Hound is a technology created by ITT that sniffs out cellular phones. Instead of making them inoperable, as jamming would do, Cell Hound determines where the cell phones are located, so guards can confiscate them.

The ITT division responsible for Cell Hound also makes jammers and does a lot of work for the federal intelligence community. So it was only natural that when the Office of Technology at the Federal Bureau of Prisons approached ITT for a way to deal with cell phones in prisons that the company would be intrigued by the idea.

According to Terry Bittner, director of Security Products for ITT, the company didn't have a direct solution and had no experience working with corrections officers at the time. But together with the FBI, they held a test of a technology that they thought would do the trick.

Mr. Bittner saw a potential market for a device that could sniff out cell phones, so the company paid for the development of Cell Hound and kept the rights, instead of asking for government money to develop it.

With Cell Hound, the company places a series of special receivers within the reception area of the cell phones, then uses the characteristics of the radio waves emitted by the cell phones to create a picture of where the phones are located. This picture, says Mr. Bittner, can locate the phone within 3 feet.

Prison officials can locate the phones more quickly and precisely -- and they don't need as many staff members to do the search and seizures, because they have that more accurate picture of where the phones are.

Mr. Bittner says there are other intangible benefits of finding the cell phones, because where you find cell phones in prison, you often find other contraband, such as drugs and weapons. In essence, the cell phones are part of a business that is being conducted behind bars, and if the corrections staff can find the contraband, it can shut those businesses down.