COLUMBUS, NE - A new camera system proposed by Platte County Sheriff Jon Zavadil will focus on curbing assaults and vandalism at the three-year-old county jail.

Zavadil has proposed replacing the fixed cameras that currently record activity in Platte County Detention Facility's inmate pods with moveable cameras that will provide a more complete view of the pods. The proposal has an estimated price tag of $16,000.

The new digital cameras will offer a 360-degree perspective on what's going on in the facility's dormitory-style housing pods, eliminating blind spots that limit officers' views with the current system, Zavadil said.

The new cameras would be located in the jail's two dormitory pods and a hallway used for moving inmates around the facility. Although specific figures were not available, several inmate assaults in recent months couldn't be prosecuted because the existing camera system didn't record the incidents.

The fixed cameras now in use at the facility, which record activity on a 24-hour a day basis with videocassette recorders, have been blamed for missing evidence of assaults among inmates and incidents of vandalism. Many inmates quickly pick up the limitations of the current camera system.
“It doesn't take 'em long to figure out the blind spots,'' Zavadil said.

The wider perspective offered by the new cameras also will check some of the county's liability for assaults committed by inmates, he said.

Officers man a centrally located master control room, constantly scanning eight monitors to keep an eye on inmate activity in the pods. Cameras that scan the outside of the facility are not fixed in place, allowing officers to shift the cameras' viewpoints.

The $7.5 million facility at 1125 E. 17th St., designed with a life span of 25 years, has 10 pods for housing inmates with capacities ranging from 32 to three inmates each. The dormitory-style pods house inmates charged or serving sentences for less severe crimes. The facility has a capacity of 137 inmates, with seven holding cells.

The detention facility, which replaced a jail with a capacity of 27 inmates built in 1975, houses an average of about 100 inmates a day, according to county's annual jail report.

The facility housed 3,194 inmates in 2004, 2,652 male prisoners and 544 female prisoners, the last full year for which figures are available. Fixed camera systems were what was in use at other facilities that county officials toured while planning the new jail, Zavadil said. A private company is scheduled to give a presentation on the new cameras at the Platte County Board of Supervisors meeting set for Tuesday.

If the board approves the purchase of the cameras, Zavadil said it wouldn't take long at all to have them installed at the jail.