The corrections field embraced several technological advancements in 2004, ranging from offender tracking devices to cell phone detection equipment.  With shrinking budgets and a growing offender population, technology has become essential to the corrections field.

On its Technology Network, The Corrections Connection Network News explored a variety of technologies and their applications this year.  The following is an overview of some of those products:

Offender Tracking and Verification
Community Alert Systems
Legal Research Kiosks
Drug Testing & DNA
Interoperability
Less-Than-Lethal
Cell Phone Detection
Training

Offender Tracking and Verification

When 11 year-old Carlie Brucia was kidnapped and murdered in Sarasota, Fla. in February by an ex-convict who was on probation, law enforcement had no record of his whereabouts and offender tracking became a hot topic. 

Bill Reach, the director of information services at Florida's Citrus County Sheriff's Office, believes that Brucia's case might have been solved earlier, or even prevented, if law enforcement had been able to attach Smith to a new tracking device before releasing him from prison.

The new tracking system, Veritracks, is the product of a five-year partnership between the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC), local law enforcement agencies and General Dynamics, which designed Veritracks specifically to assist law enforcement in connecting repeat offenders with crime incidents.

Veritracks uses global positioning technology (GPS) to track offenders released from jails and prisons and cross-references their locations to those of reported crime incidents, provided by local law enforcement. Tracked offenders wear ankle bracelets that send signals to a satellite-tracking device every minute.

Though the concept of GPS tracking is not new, Veritracks will be the first device that correlates offenders' locations with recorded crime scenes.

While law enforcement may soon be keeping a closer eye on offenders in Florida, it is not the only state updating its tracking system in the near future. Amanda Wettstein, the east coast regional director for Veritracks, said the company is already in final negotiations with other states.

According to Wettstein, Tennessee, Maryland, New York and Arizona have already filed bills to update their tracking systems to target sex offenders, while Maine and Massachusetts are discussing plans with General Dynamics to improve their sex offender registries. She also said a pilot project using the system is underway with the Georgia Sheriffs' Association.

Voice Verification

At a conference in June, U.S. Probation Officer Bunny Green told corrections practitioners about the offender database and voice verification system installed in 1997 at the U.S. Probation Office for the Southern District of Florida in Miami.  It matches the voice to one of the 625 recorded in its database. It knows who is on the phone line. It knows where the offender is calling from. And it knows if any of this information has changed.

The computer gathers routine information from offenders about addresses, phone numbers, employment and contact with law enforcement. It makes note of changes. It provides notification if a person has failed to call the system. It produces letters to be sent to offenders if their addresses or phone numbers have changed. It even schedules random office visits for former drug users to give urine samples.

For people who are assigned a home curfew, the system randomly calls those homes to make sure the offender is there. If the person does not answer the phone, it calls back 15 minutes later, in case the person was in the shower or otherwise occupied. If the person still does not pick up, or if a different person answers-something that the voice verification system would notice-a message is immediately sent.  After enrolling in the system, when an offender calls the system from home each month, he must have his voice verified before he can continue.

Once in the system, using *69, the computer makes a note of where the offender is calling from. If the number is new, it reports it and creates a form letter to be sent to the offender. If the person calls from somewhere else the computer does not allow him or her to report, said Ramiro Morejon, who designed the database and installed the voice verification program at the federal probation office.

The offender answers seven questions on the phone, and the computer makes note of any changes to his previously recorded answers. Green can easily access the information on her office desktop and monitor the offender's whereabouts and activities.

Eye Scan

According to Jeff Nicholson, Chief Deputy of Technology for the Tarrant County, Texas, Sheriff's Office, the iris recognition technology the county purchased from SecuriMetrics in 2004 cost about $45,000 and included a software interface, the server application and handheld devices for the officers to use to take a digital print of the offenders' irises.

When offenders are booked into the jail, officers scan their irises, using the handheld videogame-sized devices.  The entire process takes only about 30 seconds.
 
In addition to storing the iris scans in the jail's database, officers input some basic information about the inmate, like name, race, sex and date-of-birth. 

Technology to track offenders is only one of the new systems being used in corrections in 2004.

Community Alert Systems

In 2004, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections partnered with the Community Alert Network (CAN), a telephone emergency notification company to improve its community alert system, which notifies community residents when an inmate has escaped or an emergency has occurred.  CAN makes 250 calls simultaneously to residents within a two-mile radius of the prison when an escape occurs.

Although the state's prisons will retain its original alert system - siren alerts - CAN's technology replaces a slower, manual telephone alert system that the Department of Corrections previously used to contact residents one-by-one.

"It's important for us to let everyone know what's going on quickly," said Susan McNaughton, spokesperson for the Department of Corrections. "If [residents] see fire trucks driving down their road to the prison, they should know why upfront."

In order to activate an emergency alert, authorized prison personnel must call one of CAN's 24-hour hotlines and verify an established password. Next, the prison details the incident, selects geographic locations to receive calls and records a voice message or selects a pre-recorded message.

Many of Pennsylvania's other institutions are only steps away from business and residential areas, where McNaughton said neighbors practically "grow up with the institution."

Legal Research Kiosks

If you want to use the new legal information kiosk at the Southwest County Jail in Riverside County, California, you'll have to get in line.  Likewise, there is a waiting list to access the technology at the county's Robert Presley Detention Center.  Now that legal research is just a tap on a touch screen away, inmates are flocking to the terminals that have been recently installed in correctional facilities in California and Hawaii.

Produced by Touch Sonic Technologies (TST) and LexisNexis U.S., the kiosks, known as TSTLL, enable inmates to perform the legal research they are entitled to, according to federal law, without ever having to open a book.  Previously, to explore the legal world, inmates used reference books, which required continual updating and presented problems for some jails and prisons.

To access the legal information, inmates utilize a touch screen keyboard, which they can use to type in subjects they are interested in learning about by keywords, such as burglary or assault.  The screen is durable and encased in a black, briefcase-sized, box that is locked, according to Jack Long, Vice-President of TST, the California-based company that produces the hardware for the kiosks.

Once an inmate has typed in a request for information on the touch screen, a server, which is typically located in a staff-only area, generates information about the inquiry and sends data, which may include listings of different legal cases or statutes pertaining to a particular topic, to the inmate's screen.

Every month or so, LexisNexis, which supplies the legal data and materials, updates the data the servers provide, so that inmates have access to the most current legal information.  Reference books, too, are updated monthly with inserts, but, with each update, the books became more cumbersome.

A major advantage to using the kiosk system versus reference books, according to Long, is that once an inmate has initiated a search, he is able to easily navigate through the system. 

Drug Testing & DNA

The Marion County (Ind.) Probation-Based Drug Testing Laboratory, which was created three years ago, tests thousands of offender urine samples have been rolling in from the probation department and other county agencies, which rely on the lab to help them monitor offenders' drug use.  Before probation brought drug testing in-house, the department would have to send offender urine samples to the county's crime lab, which limited the number of samples it would accept from probation each week to 50.  As a result, many of the 11,000 offenders on probation in Marion County were not being drug-tested, solely because the lab could not accommodate such a large volume of samples.

Probation's increased need for more efficient drug testing prompted the department to build its own lab.

With Dade Behring equipment, probation's lab can test clients for 12 different substances, whereas the crime lab had previously only tested for people for marijuana, alcohol and cocaine use.   Cannabinoids (THC), Phencyclidine (PCP), Methadone, Amphetamines, Opiates, Barbiturates, Benzodiazepines, Propoxyphene and Creatinine, which indicates that someone has tried to mask drug use, are all detectable now.

To collect and test the samples, the probation department staffs the lab with 10 employees, including collectors, technicians and a manager--Erickson.  With its increased manpower and testing capabilities, the lab conducts drug testing for many county criminal justice agencies, not just probation.

The lab serves Marion County Community Corrections, the Drug Treatment Court and the juvenile detention center, which collects the samples itself and sends them there.

Thanks to an electronic delivery system, results go out quickly to requesting officers and agencies. 

DNA Databanks

As DNA continued to be an important tool for criminal justice agencies in 2004, Julie Pasquini, Director of the Bureau of Justice Partnerships for the N.Y. State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) discussed the utility of New York's DNA Databank at a conference in June.

Pasquini commended corrections professionals for their efforts in collecting DNA, via an oral swab, from qualifying offenders.  These samples that corrections agencies are adding to their states' DNA databases and the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), are helping to solve crimes, she said.

In New York, there have been almost 1,500 convicted offender hits since the Databank, which was created in 1996, was expanded in 2000, according to DCJS statistics.  And the number of national hits that have been made against the state's Databank is nearing 300.

Like New York, California's DNA database has also been helping to solve criminal cases.  According to Hallye Jordan state Attorney General Bill Lockyer's Press Secretary, as of the end of May, the state made more that 1,000 hits, linking offender samples to cases or linking evidence from different cases.

Unlike in New York, where an oral swab test is the sole means of obtaining DNA from offenders, California state law requires both a blood and saliva sample from an individual.  In addition, a thumb print and two full palm prints are taken from offenders to confirm their identities and verify that they committed the offenses in question.

Presently, only offenders convicted of certain serious or violent felonies qualify for DNA sampling in California.  And, in New York, the situation is much the same: only those convicted of violent felonies, burglary or attempted burglary, criminal sale or possession of a controlled substance or grand larceny are required to provide a DNA sample, according Pasquini.

In both states, however, there is a push to expand the pool of offenders who are required to provide DNA to the states' databanks.

Interoperability

Since 9/11, interoperability has become a concern for many first-responders.  Without the ability to communicate, various agencies responding to an emergency, may have a difficult time gaining control of a crisis situation. 

In 2004, Aegis Assessments, Inc., created a solution to this inoperability problem.  Aegis' SafetyNet Radio Bridge, through integrated circuitry, enables different agencies to interface with each other on their own two-way radios during an emergency.

According to H. Kenneth Edge, President of Aegis, in order to achieve this type of inter-communication between agencies, the participating entities, in the past, would have had to actually swap radios to get everyone on the same page.  With SafetyNet, however, up to 16 different radios from as many agencies can be connected, without ever having to trade equipment.

In order to communicate with other first responders, agencies need only attach one of their radios to SafetyNet, which resides in a stand-alone, portable, hard-cased, 15-pound unit.  An added feature is that individual channels can be designated for certain personnel or agencies and one channel can be reserved for all communication so that every person responding to the situation can talk back and forth, Edge said.

Less-Than-Lethal

Law enforcement agencies have begun to stock up on less-than-lethal technologies, like tasers and stun belts, in an effort to control inmate violence in a safer, less risky way.

But while many see the practical value of using these devices, there is still an electrifying debate among corrections professionals and human rights organizations over the legality and morality of the tools.

Stun belts, contraptions designed to send 50,000-volt electric shocks into the midsections of the criminals who wear them, are used as a means of maintaining control over violent and dangerous inmates if they try to injure someone or escape. Human rights activists say they are not necessary, and may even border on torture, however.

The Tennessee Department of Correction owns four stun belts and has used them for several years, said Lolie Jones, Jr., a security specialist at the Tennessee DOC.  He said that the DOC uses a version of the stun belt called the Remote Activated Custody Control (RACC) belt.  When an officer presses the button, 50,000 volts of electricity surge into the right kidney for eight seconds.  He said it hurts for the duration of the shock. But afterwards, the inmate can get back up and walk around.
In the last several years, however, Amnesty International has mounted a campaign against the use of stun belts."

Edward Jackson, the national media director for Amnesty International USA, said when inmates are arbitrarily shocked by the belts and there is no accountability, they "potentially take a step down that slippery slope that could lead to torture." He said Amnesty International has found no accounts of torture in the United States. But internationally, he said, belts such as these have been used for torture, sometimes strapped to people's heads.

In the U.S., corrections agencies like the Tennessee DOC are careful to use the technology responsibly.  To avoid instances of arbitrary electric shocking, the DOC has instituted a strict policy for when a stun belt can be activated. Jones said, according to the DOC's rule, officers can activate a belt "only to prevent escape or to gain control of the inmate and should never be used as punishment."

Another LTL device - a variable-range, less-than-lethal ballistic round - may soon provide law enforcement and corrections with an additional option in dealing with non-cooperative or aggressive individuals and crowds up to 100 yards away.

"If you are the target, it would be pretty terrifying. You probably will think you are going to be incinerated," says Greg MacAleese, president and CEO of Law Enforcement Technologies (LET), which has received funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to develop this new generation flash-bang round.

According to MacAleese, when the round bursts, flake aluminum is ejected and ignited to create a brilliant flash that is comparable to looking directly into the sun for 60 milliseconds but causes no permanent damage to a person's vision. In addition, the flake aluminum poses no appreciable burning hazard. It cools to the ambient temperature within a fraction of a second. The acoustics, he says, reach a painful level of 170 decibels but, again, cause no permanent damage.

NIJ is funding LET to develop two versions of the flash-bang round. One version will enable the user to manually select the range at which the round will burst. The second, a more sophisticated version, will have a radar-controlled burst capability.

Two LTL technologies that could be commercially available in the near future include-the MultiSensory Grenade, which combines sound, light, and odor to overwhelm three of the five human senses and the Ring Airfoil Projectile, which is a 2-inch rubber ring that inflicts pain but no permanent bodily injury when it strikes an individual.

Cell Phone Detection

In 2004, the BOP completed a series of tests on technologies that detect the radio frequencies used by cell phones with the idea that in the end, a device usable in corrections would be the result.

"We have for years been looking for solutions and over the years have seen a lot of technologies that didn't work or were not appropriate. The evidence presented to us showed us that they wouldn't work. [But] our news mission was to find or develop a solution," said Jim Mahan, Senior Technologist, Office of Security Technology, Federal Bureau of Prisons.

According to Ike Eichenlaub, Chief of the Office of Security Technology, BOP surveyed its facilities, which number 106, and determined there were a substantial number of cell phones confiscated from inmates in fiscal year 2003. The agency also talked with a number of colleagues in state correctional systems who indicated cell phones are being confiscated in large numbers as well.

According to Mahan, BOP has examined three or four technological approaches to eliminate this problem: jamming, selective jamming and "tricking" cell phones. 
Eichenlaub said BOP looked with an engineering company in a real facility prior to it being populated.  Mahan added that the technology BOP tested and liked was deployed a collection of sensors around the unit in an out-of-the-way location. They detected the radio frequency power emanating from a cell phone when it was on.

According to Eichenlaub, BOP is hoping to see a prototype of this technology from a couple of different companies -- late winter into spring of 2005.  He thinks, within a year, there might be something on the market.

Training

In November, at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Los Angeles, Calif., law enforcement officers had a chance to try out a new technology designed to enhance staff training.   The Interactive Training and Evaluation Classroom (iTEC), created by Advanced Interactive Systems, Inc., allows staff to test their comprehension of different topics while training is still in progress.

The iTEC system enables trainees to interact with an instructor's presentation through palm-sized keypads, which transmit information to a database through an infrared signal.  Using the hand-held keypads, staff respond to questions posed by the instructor throughout the course of a training session.  That data is captured and tabulated instantly so that trainers can determine in real-time whether or not the class is grasping particular concepts.

A basic package agencies can purchase, said Tim Bollig, iTEC product manager, consists of keypads (however many the agency requires), an instructor keypad and the iTEC software, which can be run on most personal computers.  When purchasing a basic package, agencies will typically use their own computers and LCD projectors, he said.

Depending on what type of package an agency chooses and how many keypads are needed (the system supports up to 999 users), the price of iTEC starts at just over $1,000.

Resources:
To read the full stories and news items from the past year, please visit The Corrections Connection Network News Archives