Officers in federal prisons want legislation allowing access to the health records of inmates who attack them with bodily fluids. This is needed to help them protect themselves against contracting infectious diseases, their union says.

“It’s an unfortunate reality of the job that correctional officers are always attacked by inmates in prisons,” says Lyle Stewart, a spokesperson with the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. Report by The Epoch Times.

Aside from the fact that it is not a pleasant experience for correctional officers to be attacked with urine, saliva, excrement, semen, and even bloody syringes, what is more worrying is the high rate of infectious diseases among inmates, explains Stewart.

“Inmates nowadays have higher rates of HIV infection and hepatitis C infection, and many other disease infections.”

But under Canada’s privacy laws, inmates’ health records cannot be surrendered to the attacked officer.

“The correctional officer has no right to know whether this inmate is infected with a deadly disease,” says Stewart.

As a result, even though it might not be necessary, some officers choose to follow a “post-exposure protocol”—a pharmaceutical regimen of several different drugs designed to ward off infectious diseases. However, the side effects of these drugs can be highly detrimental.

“The officer is often off work for many months, because it’s impossible to work when you follow a drug regimen like this,” says Stewart. “And while there is still a fear that someone may have contracted a deadly disease such as this, there are limits with their spouse and their children, and their other normal life and interactions are severely limited.”

Forcing attackers to release their health records could also act as a deterrent for inmates, Stewart says.

“[Inmates] know that the Correctional Service now interprets privacy laws in the way that they do. … So even if they don’t have a disease, sometimes it’s happened that they would lie—they would splash someone in the face with a cup of bodily fluids and say, ‘Ha ha, now you’re going to die, you’ve got my disease,’ even if it’s not true.”

Suzanne Leclerc, a spokesperson with Correctional Service Canada (CSC), says the department does not release inmates’ medical files “in accordance with the Privacy Act and provincial legislation related to the sharing of personal health information.”

Leclerc says the department has agreements with hospitals, clinics, and other health centres in close proximity to each institution across the country so that appropriate treatment is readily available.

“CSC’s current policy requires that individuals who are exposed to blood or bodily fluids of another individual be referred for prompt assessment and medical management,” she says.

Some provinces already have a Blood Samples Act so that first responders such as emergency workers, police, and prison officers can find out if they’re at risk of contracting a disease if they’ve been exposed to someone’s bodily fluids.

Stewart says that before the 2006 federal election, the Conservatives informed the union that legislation would be implemented to address the issue. However, no action has been taken.

The Epoch Times contacted the Prime Minister’s Office for comment but no response was received.

Tammy Canada, Inmate Health, Inmate Rights, Public Release

Syscon Justice Systems, the world’s leader in offender management solutions, announced today that it is progressing on schedule with the implementation of the company’s enhanced Elite Jail Management Systems (JMS) into the four facilities operated by the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (DOCR) in Maryland.

The new CRIMS system, will replace the facility’s older mainframe system and associated programs that have been developed ad-hoc over the past twenty years. Syscon’s state-of-the-art application will fully integrate the major portions of jail functionality, including Pre-Trial Services, Jail Management, Pre-Release and Re-Entry Services (including Work Release), Inmate Trust Accounting, and Medical/Mental Health Services. The Elite JMS utilizes an enterprise-wide data model that will significantly improve efficiency within DOCR, advance the agency’s information tracking of offenders, and provide important tools to support the agency’s mission of public safety.

Montgomery County DOCR, which houses more than 1,200 inmates on a daily basis, and manages an additional 3,400 pre-trial defendants, chose Syscon’s Elite OMS through a competitive bid process, through reviews of Syscon’s successful implementations in other States and large County Jails, and after a full technical proof of concept was demonstrated to the County.

Syscon’s President Dan Crawford praised the management of Montgomery County DOCR, noting that “Syscon is always excited to be working closely with a progressive agency that takes advantage of the full benefits possible from their decision to move forward with Syscon.”

The Elite JMS, based on Syscon’s 29 years of exclusive dedication to the corrections industry, will look after all aspects of offender management in Montgomery County DOCR’s facilities.These functions include admission, sentence calculation and management, classification, assessment and security, inmate property, programs and services, inmate grievances and requests, incidents and offenses in custody, electronic health records, gangs and security threat management, visits management, inmate financial systems, and pre-trial management.

Implementation of the first phase of Elite is scheduled to be completed in November 2009.

vericatrajkova MD Montgomery County, Offender Information

In a wide-ranging interview with the Corrections Reporter, Dan Crawford, President of Syscon Justice Systems, the largest implementer of COTS Offender Management Systems in the world, reported that the company had enjoyed a significant and successful year in 2008.

“In 2008, we signed contracts for large implementations with Denver County, Colorado, with the South Dakota DOC and with Montgomery County, Maryland. This was in addition to significant added work with our clients in the United Kingdom and Australia,” he said. “Moreover, we completed the upgrade of the product to Oracle’s latest database version and delivered the fully upgraded version of Elite to new and existing clients, including Connecticut DOC and Minnesota DOC.”

In addition to the major code upgrade to the offender management systems, Crawford reported that Elite functionality had been significantly enhanced in 2008. Syscon introduced or improved new modules for Electronic Health Records Management, Strategic Threat Groups (Gangs), and Transportation, as well as a cutting-edge Offender classification tool called Quest Assessments. “Engineering improvements have allowed the development of an industry-leading workflow system to improve efficiency,” said Crawford. “And we are proud to have recently passed a test threshold for 10,000 concurrent users.”

“As comprehensive as our Elite applications are,” Crawford continued, “our clients are active and creative in suggesting new modules for us. Our project roadmap for the next twelve months is filled with these client-requested enhancements that can only bring continued improvement to the systems for next year and beyond.”

Crawford noted that 2008 also saw continued improvement in the Company’s client support infrastructure.“With the upgrading of our support infrastructure, more formal feedback mechanisms, and the improvement of executive oversight, excellent client support will continue to be our focus in 2009,” said Crawford. “We recognize that Syscon’s future prosperity and the advancing efficiency of our client agencies are tightly woven into a cooperative framework.This framework is strengthened by our many years of working together and fortified by the constant demands on ourselves to deliver better products and better service to our users.”

vericatrajkova Offender Information

The Maryland Division of Parole and Probation for the first time will be using the juvenile records of violent adult offenders in order to allow parole officers to better monitor those with violent tendencies, according to an internal memo obtained by The Washington Times.

The memo detailed several changes in the process for screening those who are placed in the division’s Violence-Prevention Unit, an outgrowth of a 2007 initiative from [Gov. Martin] O’Malley. The unit was created to reduce violent crimes by identifying those with violent histories or who show tendencies to continue down a violent path. The unit then monitors and supervises them more closely than normal parolees.  Division Director Phil Pie said that the new screening process includes the ability to look at an offender’s juvenile record, according to the memo …

The changes follow legislative proposals by Mr. O’Malley this year to allow the sharing of juvenile court records with other states and the District, as well as with other state and federal agencies that serve juvenile offenders.  “It’s a response to the technology used to swap data, and the fact that there is now greater sharing of intelligence between the [parole division] and local agencies. In short, the division has become much more proactive in preventing violent crime by offenders,” said Rick Benetti, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services …

State officials said that shooting victims are put into the program because they are more likely to try to take vengeance on the person who shot them.  “The idea is, if you’re an offender, and you’re involved in a shooting, whether a victim or not, chances are you’re doing something wrong,” Mr. Benetti said.  Maryland Delegate Jill Carter, Baltimore Democrat, questioned the program’s effectiveness, saying that it was part of Mr. O’Malley’s tendency to favor “stat-based symbolism over actual substance.”  “I disagree with any policy that would brand a victim of crime as a future criminal,” she said.

A great deal more detail is available in the full article at The Washington Times.

vericatrajkova Data Sharing, Juvenile Justice, Maryland, Offender Information, Probation and Parole

A comprehensive plan to enhance security inside jail premises across West Bengal has been approved by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, as reported by Express India.

The Rs 10 crore-modernisation plan [approx US$2.1m] will pave way for installation of radio scanners, metal detectors, more surveillance cameras in all the six central jails and sensitive district jails of the state by the end of April this year.  The decision to enhance surveillance and checking of inmates, as well as jail employees, has been taken following the seizure of cellphones, DVDS, marijuana and other incriminating materials from inmates and employees of Alipore and Dum Dum jails. In all, six mobile sets had been recovered from Alipore central jail during surprise raids on January 25 which was conducted jointly by Kolkata police and jail authorities …

He also said that out of the Rs 10 crore sanctioned about Rs 3 to 4 crore [US$620,000-700,000] will be spent on computerisation of records. Incidentally, during the clash between inmates and guards at Howrah jail in the last week of December, several important papers were burnt and that led to a delay in the release of several prisoners.

vericatrajkova Asia, Electronic Monitoring, INTERNATIONAL, India, Offender Information, RFID

The Borneo Bulletin reports that the Brunei Prisons Department is to build its own Offender Management System.

“The roles and functions of the Prisons Department are facing many challenges. Requirements and preparations therefore need to be readjusted,” said Prisons Superintendent Hj Md ‘Isamuddin Abdullah Juna, the Prisons Department’s Head of Public Relations and IT.   “We also believe that technology plays an important role in redefining the correctional administration and can be utilised to reform inmates more effectively” … In line with the Brunei government’s vision of establishing an e-Government, the Prisons Department recently took steps to implement IT as an important organisational tool.  An Inmate Management System (IMS) is being developed for the department and will be built from the ground up …

IMS is a new system for correctional institutions in Brunei, which will incorporate core correctional inmate management modules with the latest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology in tracking inmates to achieve optimal security and effective penal administration …  “It will also incorporate a live 24/7 tracking module for the inmates – a first in the Southeast Asian region. The system is designed to integrate all available data concerning inmates and their rehabilitation during imprisonment in the correctional facilities …

The system is also designed to interface at a later stage with other law enforcement agencies, such as the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Royal Brunei Police Force and the Narcotics Control Bureau, among others, which will improve interdepartmental communications and data-sharing in a virtual integrated justice system.

Currently, IMS is in the System Development Stage and estimated to be completely operational sometime in July this year.

vericatrajkova Brunei, Electronic Monitoring, INTERNATIONAL, Offender Information, RFID

A proposed Wyoming state law would allow sheriffs to release booking photographs and other basic information about inmates housed in county jails.

House Bill 72 has been endorsed by the House Judiciary Committee and is awaiting consideration by the full House of Representatives.   As interpreted by most county attorneys, Wyoming law allows only the Department of Corrections, which operates state prisons, to publicly release information on inmates.   The proposed bill would authorize county sheriffs to release the same basic data, including an adult inmate’s name, photo, reason for incarceration, sentencing details and release date …

Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric said he believes the information should be public.   “The taxpayers built that jail, and they ought to know who is in it,” Skoric said, adding that the Wyoming Association of County Attorneys supports the bill.

Publicly distributing information on county inmates is an important part of a Wyoming crime victim notification system in development, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rosie Berger, R-Big Horn.  “We realized there was some information missing to make the program really effective in protecting victims of crime,” Berger said in an e-mail.

The Gillette News has more information.

vericatrajkova Public Release, WY Park County, Wyoming

The following is an editorial from the News-Journal:

Errors In Prisoner Release Go Deeper Into Managing Information

Delawareans, of course, were startled to read recently that over an 18-month period, 29 prisoners were let go too early. The released prisoners, while recaptured, put citizens and law enforcement officers in danger. The accidents also made a mockery of our penal system. But luckily, a tragedy did not occur … this time. All four candidates for governor rightly expressed outrage, and each duly promised to fix the problem.

The recordkeeping in the state prison system cannot keep up with the complexity of sentencing laws. Some records are still kept by hand. Calculations can go wrong. Department of Correction Commissioner Carl Danberg acknowledged the problem. Critics of the system said it goes back farther and deeper than the 29 prisoners prematurely released on Mr. Danberg’s watch.

No wonder.  The system is inadequate. It has to be thoroughly modernized, and up-to-date information controls must be put in place. In fact, it’s probably a good guess that the prisoner release is only the most dramatic failure of an outmoded information system.

While criticism from the four candidates for governor stings, it didn’t go far enough. The Department of Correction’s failure goes beyond human fumbling. The real trouble is too little is known about what state government does. Even the governor doesn’t know. Nor does the General Assembly. Delaware simply doesn’t make enough information available to its top management. For sure, some people like it that way. The different lower management silos in state government are free to operate with little supervision. The reports that are generated are often not combined and analyzed.

All an administration has to do is avoid a crisis, such as the death of a child in state care or the murder of a civilian by a prematurely released prisoner. Avoid that, and it’s business as usual. But for the new governor, the next crisis is in the data.  The next governor will have to deal with a crisis at some point, whether it is in a prison or mental hospital, the state police force or child welfare department. Once it is over, a blue-ribbon commission will lament that this crisis could have been prevented, if only someone had detected the signals.

Now is the time to monitor those signals. A system that routinely and thoroughly examines the information available can fix problems before they develop. The state government is moving into a more transparent accounting system. Citizens will be better able to see where the money goes. But the candidates for governor should push for a system that accounts for results as well as money.

vericatrajkova Data Sharing, Delaware, Early Release, Sentencing

Many of us, Syscon and Securus included, boast of being able to link streams of data into useful operational knowledge. The Baltimore Sun printed an interesting article this morning that describes the use of multiple databases in context.

Anne Arundel County detectives investigating the fatal shooting of a Baltimore man in a neighborhood near Arundel Mills mall last month had two solid leads: In the minutes before his death, according to charging documents, Derrin Davon Thomas had been in contact with someone identified in his cell phone as Dip, and records showed Dip’s phone had connected with nearby cell towers at the time of the killing. The next step was to figure out who Dip was. Detectives, tipped off that the shooter might have been from Prince George’s County, turned to officers there, who searched a database of nicknames and other identifying features of known criminals and their associates.

The rest of the story tells how they tracked him down. As one observer says:

“In today’s world, everybody thinks DNA is huge, but these are the old-fashioned traditional police techniques that are tried and true,” said Andrew Karmen, a criminologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “It allows you to cut to the chase and reach into a pile of a thousand suspects and end up with a handful, or sometimes just one.”

A useful reminder, I think, that our work has everyday implications.

vericatrajkova Data Sharing, Gangs (STGs), MD Anne Arundel County, MD Prince George's County

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information — from palm prints to eye scans. Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI’s Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is “important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in.”

The FBI already has 55 million sets of fingerprints on file. In coming years, the bureau wants to compare palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes. The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect. A lot will depend on how quickly technology is perfected, according to Thomas Bush, the FBI official in charge of the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility where the FBI houses its current fingerprint database. “Fingerprints will still be the big player,” Bush, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, told CNN. But he added, “Whatever the biometric that comes down the road, we need to be able to plug that in and play.”

First up, he said, are palm prints. The FBI has already begun collecting images and hopes to soon use these as an additional means of making identifications. Countries that are already using such images find 20 percent of their positive matches come from latent palm prints left at crime scenes, the FBI’s Bush said. The FBI has also started collecting mug shots and pictures of scars and tattoos. These images are being stored for now as the technology is fine-tuned. All of the FBI’s biometric data is stored on computers 30-feet underground in the Clarksburg facility. In addition, the FBI could soon start comparing people’s eyes — specifically the iris, or the colored part of an eye — as part of its new biometrics program called Next Generation Identification.

Nearby, at West Virginia University’s Center for Identification Technology Research, researchers are already testing some of these technologies that will ultimately be used by the FBI. “The best increase in accuracy will come from fusing different biometrics together,” said Bojan Cukic, the co-director of the center.

But it’s unnerving to privacy experts.

“It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project. “People who don’t think mistakes are going to be made I don’t think fly enough,” said Steinhardt. He said thousands of mistakes have been made with the use of the so-called no-fly lists at airports — and that giving law enforcement widespread data collection techniques should cause major privacy alarms. “There are real consequences to people,” Steinhardt said.

You don’t have to be a criminal or a terrorist to be checked against the database.

More than 55 percent of the checks the FBI runs involve criminal background checks for people applying for sensitive jobs in government or jobs working with vulnerable people such as children and the elderly, according to the FBI. The FBI says it hasn’t been saving the fingerprints for those checks, but that may change. The FBI plans a so-called “rap-back” service in which an employer could ask the FBI to keep the prints for an employee on file and let the employer know if the person ever has a brush with the law. The FBI says it will first have to clear hurdles with state privacy laws, and people would have to sign waivers allowing their information to be kept.

Critics say people are being forced to give up too much personal information. But Lawrence Hornak, the co-director of the research center at West Virginia University, said it could actually enhance people’s privacy. “It allows you to project your identity as being you,” said Hornak. “And it allows people to avoid identity theft, things of that nature.”

There remains the question of how reliable these new biometric technologies will be.

A 2006 German study looking at facial recognition in a crowded train station found successful matches could be made 60 percent of the time during the day. But when lighting conditions worsened at night, the results shrank to a success rate of 10 to 20 percent. As work on these technologies continues, researchers are quick to admit what’s proven to be the most accurate so far. “Iris technology is perceived today, together with fingerprints, to be the most accurate,” said Cukic. But in the future all kinds of methods may be employed. Some researchers are looking at the way people walk as a possible additional means of identification.

vericatrajkova Biometrics, Data Sharing, FBI, Facial Recognition, Federal Systems, Iris Scanning