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| L.A. jails to use tags to track inmates |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/16/2005 |
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Authorities in Los Angeles said Sunday they will begin tracking inmates in the nation's largest jail system using new radio-linked wristbands to pinpoint their location within a few feet. Los Angeles County plans to spend $1.5 million to tag about 1,900 inmates in one unit of the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, beginning early next year. If it works well, the program may be expanded to the 6,000 inmates at the county's central jail and then to other facilities, said Marc Klugman, chief of the sheriff's department's Correctional Services Division. The tracking device is an updated version of wristbands that have been tested since 2000 at California's Calipatria State Prison near the Mexican border _ the first in the nation to track its inmates electronically. The concept has since been exported to other states. Michigan's Bureau of Juvenile Justice has had a $1 million tracking system at a maximum-security prison since 2003 and is installing it at a second detention facility. The technology also is being used at a minimum-security prison in Chillicothe, Ohio, and at a medium-security correctional center near Springfield, Ill. Removing or breaking the bracelet sets off a computer alarm, alerting officers to a possible prison escape. Beyond tracking inmates around cell blocks, the technology has the potential to allow work-release crews to roam within an electronic fence that could be easily moved wherever it is needed, said Harinder Singh, executive officer of the California Department of Corrections' technology transfer committee. Los Angeles County jails' revolving-door population poses the toughest test yet for the technology. The facilities house about 18,000 inmates on a given day, but nearly 200,000 people pass through the system each year, some for a few hours, others for months. Several thousand inmates must be moved to and from court appearances each day. Last year alone there were an estimated 1,330 violent incidents that injured 88 jail employees and 1,742 inmates in Los Angeles County. Five prisoners were killed. |
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