New software ability unveiled at jail
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/61877/
BENTONVILLE — The Benton County Jail unveiled a new software ability in its inmate-tracking software on Friday that allows easier cataloguing of gang members.
Jail Capt. Hunter Petray said the software now includes fields to enter information on gang-member affiliations and their known associates.
The software update by Southern Software of Southern Pines, N. C., was completed this week, about a year after the Benton County Sheriff’s Office first requested the changes.
Petray said the software update will help law enforcement stay ahead of an ever-changing criminal element.
“ The criminal out there is always looking for a way to outdo law enforcement, ” he said.
Along with presenting the new search fields, Petray highlighted the software’s ability to include photos of gang members’ tattoos, saying gang identifications were previously collected through paper copies by hand, not by computer. Petray later said the previous version of the software was already being used to store photos of all inmate tattoos, scars and markings in electronic form.
“ We’ve always documented scars and also tattoos, ” Petray said.
The prior version also had a comment field that would have allowed jail deputies to enter any relevant information, including gang affiliations.
The new version of the software does not allow a search of tattoo descriptions. Petray said many tattoos can be interpreted in various ways by different people, rendering such a search option inefficient.
Petray said the database created with the new software will be used to ensure the safety of officers who come into contact with documented gang members. The information in the database, he said, will be available to deputies on their department-issued laptop computers and to other agencies via e-mail. Within the next two weeks, he expects Benton County Central Communications to be utilizing the software, passing that information on to any law-enforcement agency with which Cencom is communicating.
More than 100 gang members have been documented by the jail, Petray said, but they have not yet all been uploaded into the system. The Rogers Police Department has its own gang-member database, which includes profiles of more than 200 people suspected of gang activities, Lt. Mike Johnson said.
The news conference came only four days before Tuesday’s primary election, in which Sheriff Keith Ferguson will square off against former Sheriff Andy Lee, whose campaign includes predictions that gang activity will lead to a prevalence of prostitution in the county; and Rogers Sgt. Kelley Cradduck, who led his department’s Crime Suppression Unit, overseeing the creation of Rogers’ gang database.