Wristbands Document Interactions Between Prisoners and Officers

Hardin County Jail has upgraded its RFID system with high-frequency 13.56 MHz RFID wristbands, to track every officer-inmate transaction in real time.

By Claire Swedberg

Mar. 4, 2010—Lawsuits are one of most county jails' greatest concerns when it comes to record tracking. When inmates are injured, fall ill or commit suicide, a jail needs to be able to prove it provided all of the services it could offer prior to that incident, and that it was not in any way negligent. In addition, jails must meet guidelines set forth by government-run departments of correction to prove that services are being provided, and that detainees are being properly monitored. Thanks to RFID-tagged wristbands worn by its prisoners, Hardin County Jail, in Eldora, Iowa, now has a precise electronic record of what services each inmate receive, as well as their physical condition, throughout the day.

Initially, the jail's officers manually tracked each inmate using paper and pen, and input various details—such as that individual's recreation time, head counts and the specifics of any interactions—into the PC, to be stored in the facility's jail-management system. The problem was that the data was often passed through several officers, a great deal of time could elapse before it was entered, and there was no way to prove any stated interactions actually occurred. More...

03-06-2010 11:33