Insufficient technology for prisons – Folha de Pernambuco

In the State, cameras have been deployed, but, as in the case of the Healed, the bets have been in barsPhoto by: Jedson Nobre

Pernambuco will invest R$ 10.8 million in technology to equip the correctional facilities. The resource includes an amount of R$ 295 million released by the Federal Government to the states at the end of last year, even before the crisis of the penitentiary have been launched with more than a hundred deaths in unrest in the state of Amazonas, Roraima and Rio Grande of the North.

The devices that will be purchased, such as scanners and blockers cell phone signal, designed to remedy one of the worst "calluses" of the system: the entry and the use of the materials unlawful within prisons and detention centres. Only in 2016, 51 firearms and 4.5 thousand weapons were found in the hands of inmates in the State.

The investments, however, still are far from edge innovations are already available, including in prisons in brazil and that could raise the security in the units pernambucanas to the next level.

In the United States, for example – which has 2.2 million prisoners, the largest prison population in the world, since there are detention centres that are equipped with cameras, high-resolution capable of monitoring even the facial expressions of the practical, and to predict any possible rebellions.

Not far from here, in the state of Ceará, part of the prison system is already monitored by 566 camcorders from an IP address, which allows the observation of the patios and in the vicinity of the penitentiary in the distance, and integrated with other security agencies. The cameras capture also the sound and are equipped with a software that makes the management of images and allows the activation of alarms from moves that are considered atypical.

In the state of Pernambuco, cameras were deployed in the units, at a cost of about$ 5 million, according to data announced by the State Government in 2015, but, as in the case of the Prison Complex of the Cured, one of the main betting has been the deployment of a fence by the wall. The fence high inhibits that drugs and weapons are being released by the top of the walls in the direction to the detainees, but it is not efficient at the time of the visitations.

Doctor degree from The George Washington University and a consultant in public safety, George Dantas points out that the technology has been successfully applied in prison systems around the world and that they are a "no going back". "With automation, you can avoid that prisoners are to plot rebellions and escapes. It is not merely to build big walls," he says.

sales Engineer Axis Communications, a Swedish manufacturer that offers technologies to prisons, Érico Moreira avoids speaking of the numbers of devices such as those used in the U.S. and in the state of Ceará, but ensures that the systems enable the reduction of infrastructure costs for prisons in the medium term and, as a counterpart, still gives robustness to the intelligence services. "You monitor the approach of strangers, determines limits for the movement, all the less dependent on the operator’s agents and the police."