Title: Using Technology to Make Prisons and Jails Safer | National Institute of Justice
Headings: Using Technology to Make Prisons and Jails Safer
Using Technology to Make Prisons and Jails Safer
Testing Airport Scanners in Prisons
New Portable Scanner Spots Improvised Weapons
Tracking Prisoners and Pinpointing Prison Hotspots
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Using Technology to Make Prisons and Jails Safer
Date Published
March 26, 2009
By
Philip Bulman
This was no ordinary telephone call. A Baltimore man allegedly used a cell phone to arrange a murder, offering to pay $2,500 for the crime, according to Maryland federal prosecutors. Moreover, the man should not have had a cell phone — he was in the Baltimore City Jail on the evening he allegedly placed the fateful call. Indeed, according to the federal indictment, he was being held on a murder charge and made the call to arrange the killing of a witness to the original murder. Cell phones and the electric chargers that power them are just the latest form of contraband that correctional institutions grapple with daily. Corrections officers also face attempts to smuggle drugs and weapons into the facilities, as well as inmates who fashion weapons out of ordinary materials. To help correctional managers detect contraband and run safer institutions, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is sponsoring several research projects and pilot programs, based on recommendations from expert practitioners, to test an array of technologies. [ 1] Scanning and detection devices can help spot everything, from a cell phone to a knife. Devices using radio waves can track prisoner and staff movements within an institution. New computer programs may help predict where problems are most likely to occur.