A South Carolina senator is sponsoring a bill that would allow prisons to jam cell phone signals so inmates couldn’t use cellular phones smuggled behind bars.

South Carolina prison officials want to show how technology available to the federal government can help keep state prisons safer, and they aren’t letting a federal law stand in their way.

Federal regulators say they are willing to work with South Carolina officials who want to jam cell phone signals in prisons. Jamming the signals is against federal law, but Federal Communications Commission spokesman Robert Kenney said Thursday the agency understands concerns about prisoners using contraband cell phones.