Advancements to the jail phone system could help solve crimes

As different contracts within the Sheriff’s Office come due, I always like to shop around to make sure we are getting the best deal we can find for the money, and I am always finding myself surprised at how fast things continue to change in the world of technology. We recently attended a demo from a phone company that provides phones and other related software for jails and prisons, and this area, like others, has made significant changes in a short time.

We currently can monitor phone recordings within the jail and that ability has helped us with many cases as our customers love to talk about all their great accomplishments over the phone while they are in jail for said great accomplishments. New software available from some of the phone companies could greatly assist our detectives with their investigations by allowing them to identify inmates using state-of-the-art voice recognition software and the ability for the system to alert investigators when key words that have been set by the investigators are used over the phones.

Any time I talk about phones in our jail, I must mention one of our cases that was aided by our phone system when a person we had arrested for selling drugs called someone and told them to hide the money. The best part was when the inmate whispered to the person on the other end and said he could not talk very loud because “they” were listening. We used the newest technology by turning up the volume and within an hour had recovered over $40,000 in cash.

It used to be as simple as monitoring the phone system in our jail, but as time goes by there have become common ways to make it much harder to track criminal activity over the phones, even when they are recorded. People outside of jails help inmates set up three-way calling so that inmates can talk to people without it showing up as a call made from the jail. They also have other people make calls for them and then several minutes into the call they hand the phone to another inmate making it look like the first inmate was the one making the phone call.

With some of the new technology available, a computer would be able to detect a change in the voice and notify the jail that a second inmate has joined a call that was not made by them. In the near future, we will also be able to set phone numbers in the system so that the system will notify us that someone in the jail is attempting to call a victim, allowing us to check and make sure it was not the suspect who is making the call.

Just like identifying people by fingerprints and DNA, the new phone systems will be able to take and save voice samples from inmates who are booked into a jail, allowing us to identify what inmate is on a phone during those times when inmates use other people’s calling cards to make phone calls.

In this world a lot can change in a short time, but with the help of this newer technology, we will be able to have the best investigative tools for our detectives to use, and the best thing is that it will be paid for by the phone calls made our customers, not our citizens. So, the next time you come to our jail and forgot to tell someone where to hide the money, don’t forget we are always listening!