Software aims to make running jails easier

Printrak International Inc. has released a software product that company officials say should make it easier to manage jails and prisons.

The product, which company leaders call the Corrections Management System, pulls together 13 software applications to let officials at jails and prisons record information on inmates in one integrated computer system. Information that correctional officers can collect include inmate medical records, booking information and information on the programs and privileges to which an inmate is entitled.

Mike Schuetz, product manager at Printrak, called the product "a software program that's meant to facilitate the booking, tracking and release of inmates" to provide a single computerized snapshot of an inmate's history. The snapshot is useful for overseeing inmates and for responding to claims of abuse against inmates, Schuetz said.

He also said government policy makers should find the new tool useful in analyzing data on a "macro" level to determine prison or jail conditions, such as the overall health of inmates or the extent of overcrowding.

Many prisons and jails now collect information on paper, Schuetz said. Paper-based records collecting often requires correctional officers to have to dig through dozens of boxes of records and assemble a patchwork of papers to research an inmate's history or determine the status of an institution's programs, he said.