Essentials of Criminal Justice 9th Edition by Larry Siegel ,John Worrall

Exercise 1

Monitoring People and Places in Prison
There have been ongoing efforts to monitor both places and people in prison. Employing technology to improve monitoring effectiveness would elevate safety levels while saving costs.
MONITORING PLACES
One new approach now under development, the Correctional Operational Trend Analysis System (COTAS), is intended to monitor places by predicting potential trouble spots within prisons. Knowing ahead of time where trouble might arise lets managers assign extra staff or take other actions that can prevent violence and other problems. A software development team is creating a system to map and manage information that lets all levels of managers monitor cross-functional operations quickly. COTAS is being designed so it can identify trends, patterns, and areas of concerns within specific individual institutions and statewide.
COTAS is being developed by the Florida Department of Corrections. When ready, COTAS will have the ability to display events based on violent and nonviolent historical indexes of data that are used to format predictive levels of inmate behavior and facility security conditions. The engineers are developing a graphical user interface so managers can interact with the computer's pictures, symbols, and charts and make proactive decisions that will minimize or prevent criminal activity in the facility.
MONITORING PEOPLE
Another approach is to monitor people to head off potential trouble. For example, an automated suicide warning system is being developed as a cost-effective, noninvasive approach to behavior monitoring. This radar-based system can measure an inmate's heart rate, breathing rate, and body motions without being attached to the individual. The system consists of:
• "Personal health status" sensors that can be enclosed in a box on the ceiling to remotely and noninvasively monitor inmates' pulse and breathing
• Network connections to remote monitors
• Software designed to interpret motion data and create a decision tree for when to notify officers
A wall-mounted range controlled radar (RCR) system-originally designed for home security motion detectors-measures subtle motions on the body's surface caused by heart and lung activity. Alarms are activated when the system detects suspicious changes in heart rate, breathing rate, or body motion.
When implemented, the automated suicide watch system will include the following benefits:
• Less obtrusive, less prone to destruction. A key feature of the device is that it is less obtrusive. Inmates are prone to tamper with or destroy monitoring devices, but a device that does not require physical contact with the prisoner could make tampering or destruction less likely.
• Detect disguised suicide attempts. Correctional officers mistake cleverly disguised suicide attempts as normal behavior. An automated system could safeguard against human error.
• Provide continuous monitoring. An inmate under traditional suicide watch typically is checked on by corrections staff every 15 minutes. Even with this intense effort by corrections facilities, inmates still have ample time to commit or attempt suicide. Monitoring technology can provide continuous surveillance to supplement the visual inspections and alert officers quickly to any attempt.
• Fewer people needed to staff suicide watch. By installing these devices, prisons may be able to reduce the number of officers needed to monitor prisoners, freeing staff for other corrections tasks.
• Watch more prisoners at risk. An automated system could be installed to monitor inmates who are at high risk, such as those on suicide watch or new prisoners awaiting trial.
CRITICAL THINKING
Should prison inmates have some privacy rights? Do all these new technological advances reduce inmate independence and hamper their adjustment? Or does the needs for prison security outweigh individual rights of inmates?