[Ppnews] Tracking system to track and monitor over 2, 000 prisoners

[Political Prisoner News]

RFID Tracking Allows Prisons to More Closely Monitor Inmates
By 
<http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/feedback.php/http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3758456>Daniel 
Casciato

One of the nation's largest correctional 
institutions is spending $3.3 million to install 
an RFID inmate tracking system to track and 
monitor over 2,000 of its inmates­making it the 
largest installation of RFID technology to track 
and monitor people anywhere in the world.

According to the president of the company 
installing the tracking system, the technology 
will provide the 
<http://doc.dc.gov/doc/site/default.asp>Washington, 
D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) facility 
with a state-of-the-art investigative tool and 
safety system for its 450-plus staff.

"They approached us because they recognized the 
value of the technology and enhancing their 
ability to manage inmates," said Greg M. Oester, 
president of <http://www.tsiprism.com/>Alanco/TSI PRISM, Inc.

The tracking system, expected to be installed by 
the end of the year, combines TSI PRISM's RFID 
Inmate Tracking System with Wi-Fi compatible RTLS 
technology from <http://www.aeroscout.com/>AeroScout, Inc.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based Alanco/TSI PRISM, Inc., 
a subsidiary of <http://www.alanco.com/>Alanco 
Technologies, Inc., pioneered the use of RFID 
inmate tracking technology in August 2000. 
Currently, ten prisons throughout the world are 
using its tracking technology, including 
facilities in California, Michigan, Minnesota, 
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, and 
Australia. Three others, including the 
Washington, D.C. DOC, are installing the technology this year.

How it works

TSI PRISM is comprised of three primary 
components: tamper detecting tags, readers, and a 
host computer employing the TSI PRISM software.

"Everyone in the prison facility wears a 
transmitter of one form or another," explained 
Oester. "The inmates wear a tamper detecting 
device on the wrist that looks like a large 
industrial wristwatch. This device sends a beacon 
every two seconds and has multiple levels of 
tamper detection. So you can’t remove it. The 
officers and prison staff wear a transmitter 
device that looks like a pager on their utility 
belts and it has multiple levels of duress 
notifications. So if an officer is attacked or is 
in trouble in the prison facility, he can push 
the distress button and we instantly know who he 
is, where he is and what the threat level is."

All of these signals are collected by an array of 
antennae that have been installed around the 
prison facility and uses triangulation methodology.

"We know precisely where everyone is throughout 
the facility, so we can identify people by name 
and their location, who they’re standing next to, 
and so on," said Oester. "All of this data is 
archived into a database so we can determine 
where someone is in about a two-second keystroke. 
We can also go back into the database and find 
out where that particular individual was yesterday or two months ago."

The greater good

Two of the primary benefits of the technology are 
that it promotes and forces inmate accountability 
and becomes a strong investigative resource for resolving incidences.

"The inmates know that they are being tracked," 
Oester said. "They know that they can be caught 
and it can be determined if they were involved in 
a rules violation. If there’s an incident to be 
investigated, we can conclusively determine who 
was in the immediate proximity of the event, 
which shortens the witness list considerably. It 
denies inmates the ability to say that they were 
not at a particular event. We capture them 
off-screen and it provides staff with a very 
useful tool to positively and conclusively 
resolve incidents or participation by inmates in particular incidences."

Another added benefit is the creation of 
operational savings. RFID technology enables 
correctional institutions to reduce manual tasks 
that normally require valuable staff time.

"If a particular inmate in a 200-bed facility 
doesn’t show up for work detail or classroom 
assignment, it would take a staff person about 30 
to 40 minutes to conduct a physical search," said 
Oester. "With our technology, we know where 
everyone is with a keystroke. That frees up the 
staff from mundane search work. It allows them to 
do drug screening or security sweeps that 
frequently there’s not enough time in a day to 
do. It becomes a very comprehensive management tool."

Privacy concerns

Constant monitoring, of course, means that 
inmates have even less privacy and freedom of 
movement than before the RFID system was put in 
place. Oester’s position is that in a prison 
environment, an individual’s right to privacy has already been taken away.

"They can strip the individual and search them at 
will," he said. "Prison facilities can utilize 
cameras in every area of the prison, except 
perhaps the bathroom or shower area. Our 
technology is a security enhancement to the 
facility. We don't actually depict the human body 
on screen so unlike cameras, we can track an 
individual into a bathroom or shower area."

Bill Covington, a professor of clinical law at 
the <http://www.law.washington.edu/>University of 
Washington Law School, runs 
<http://www.law.washington.edu/Clinics/Technology/>The 
Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic, has no 
issues with the real-time tracking technology.

"I'm hard pressed to see the ethical violations 
in terms of wanting to know physically where the 
inmates are located at all times in those facilities," he said.

Jeffrey B. Killino, an attorney with the 
Philadelphia law firm, 
<http://www.wklawyer.com/>Woloshin & Killino, P.C., agrees.

"From my standpoint, an RFID tag is no more 
intrusive and no more invasive than a prison 
uniform or handcuffs or shackles," he said. "It's 
a tag that they are wearing, whether it's on 
their arms or legs, and that is completely and 
ethically appropriate. Like many Americans, I 
take our right to privacy very seriously, but 
when you have been convicted of a crime and you 
are in a prison, I don't see how you have the right to argue this."

What will draw the line, according to Killino, is 
embedding an RFID tag into a human being. In 
2004, the <http://www.fda.gov/>U.S. Food and Drug 
Administration approved of an 
<http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/protectingid/0,3800002220,39124983,00.htm>RFID 
chip that can be implanted in humans for medical purposes.

"I don't know if they would ever go that far in 
our lifetime," said Killino. "That would put you 
into the argument of cruel and unusual punishment 
that prisoners typically raise and it's too much 
of the invasion of the person and privacy by 
having that tag in there. You'll have people up 
in arms and there will be a knockdown-drag-out fight should that occur."

Oester said that is an unlikely scenario.

"It will never happen because it’s a privacy 
issue," he said. "Injecting a foreign device into 
a human body is something that can only be done 
with the consent of the individual and I don’t 
see that ever taking place on a wholesale basis. 
There’s no benefit to the inmate and there’s no 
benefit to the facility. There’s currently a 
device that would work in this environment anyway 
and it’s not something that we would attempt to do."

One concern that Covington raises is whether the 
technology is 100 percent effective.

"There would be ethical problems if you tell 
prisoners that they'll be safe, that they won't 
be beaten or raped, because you have this 
technology that will allow you to know where they 
are," he said. "This is a sort of guarantee of 
safety to the prisoner and their family. I don't 
know if it's reached the point where we can 
declare that to them. I don't know where you can 
have 100 percent accuracy at all times in all situations."

However, TSI PRISM utilizes a broadband system 
for real-time tracking that is more effective 
than a narrowband system that some companies use. 
Narrowband systems transmit slower signals and 
may not track the actual movement reliably.

Broadband systems are capable of transmitting 
fast signals at frequent intervals. At two-second 
intervals, each transmitter is sending a signal 
43,200 times per day. By tracking an inmate in 
these two-second intervals, the broadband depicts 
the subject's actual movement along their pathway 
of travel. Contrast that to a narrowband, which 
usually transmits every 30 seconds. An inmate can 
move up to 50 yards, assault someone, and return without being detected.

According to the company, several key statistics 
from correctional institutions using its system prove its effectiveness:

·        Incidents of force and violence were reduced by more than 65 percent.

·        Failures to report to job incidents were reduced from 29 to 0.

·        Theft and destruction of state property 
incidents were reduced by more than 40 percent.

"Adoption of this technology is increasing and 
accelerating," said Oester. "I’m very confident 
that once this DC installation is completed, it 
will adequately showcase the value of the 
technology in a very large, densely populated institution."

Daniel Casciato is a freelance writer from 
Pittsburgh, PA. In addition to writing for 
Wi-FiPlanet, he writes legal, medical, real 
estate and technology-related articles for trade 
and consumer publications and recently launched 
his own copywriting business. For more 
information, visit <http://www.danielcasciato.com/>www.danielcasciato.com.




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