JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - The traditional methods of keeping track of prisoners - bars, guards and walls - might soon have a more modern, high-tech partner.

An electronic monitoring system of tags that send radio signals to a computer might be used to track prisoners and guards at a new prison scheduled to open later this year.

The General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Corrections heard a presentation yesterday from Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alanco Technologies, makers of the tracking technology.

The committee is considering whether to outfit the new Jefferson City Correctional Center with the technology. It directed the Department of Corrections to solicit bids on installing it. Alanco has installed the technology in prisons in California, Illinois and Michigan and is constructing systems in Florida and Ohio prisons.

Prisoners would get tamper- and water-resistant tags on their wrists. The tags would have a bar code that detailed the inmate’s name and identification number and also would send a radio signal to a computer in the prison.

Various transmitters would be embedded around the prison to help pinpoint a person’s location within 20 feet. Prison guards also would have transmitters allowing them to activate an alarm if they were in danger.

Everett Bell, Alanco’s chief operating officer, said the system would cut down on fights and violence and help reduce the potential for inmates to take guards as hostages.

"The primary objective is to improve the safety of the people who work inside a prison unit," Bell told the committee. "If they are moved or taken hostage, you know where they are taken to."

Corrections workers would monitor the computer to watch for prisoners who went outside the prison or where they weren’t allowed. The computer would be instantly updated when inmates are released or even temporarily allowed off the grounds, such as for court hearings.

The system also would allow officials to search the computer’s records if they needed to investigate an incident. Bell said an example was when two Arizona prisoners took guards hostage last month. Had the computer system been installed there, corrections staffers would have seen that the prisoners were moving their hostages around the complex and potentially could have stopped the 15-day standoff before it began, Bell said.

Gary Kempker, director of the Department of Corrections, said that although the system sounds good, the technology wouldn’t supplant traditional surveillance methods.

"We think there’s a potential for this technology in this state," Kempker said in an interview. "I don’t think we are comfortable relying on this instead of our traditional methods."

The company would not say what the system would cost. Kempker said it would be nearly $5 million in the first year and about $500,000 per year after that. But committee Chairwoman Rep. Danie Moore, R-Fulton, said she was told the system would cost about $2.6 million in the first year.

Jefferson City Correctional Center is scheduled to open at the end of the summer and hold about 2,000 prisoners, who will be moved there from the 168-year-old Missouri State Penitentiary, which is closing.

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