IP face expression monitoring to ensure safety in prisons

The Worcester County Office (Massachusetts – United States), a detention centre composed of twelve buildings, has installed a hundred network cameras of the Swedish manufacturer Axis Communications that it uses to monitor the expressions of the face of the prisoners and prevent any incidence.

The applications of IP video surveillance systems are increasingly wide, as they offer numerous functionalities in the security environment, as with an American prison, specifically at the Worcester County Office detention center, in Massachusetts, where they are used to monitor the expressions and emotions of the faces of prisoners.

In addition to ensuring the safety of prison officials and inmates, the cameras allow to prevent incidents, as well as generating evidence that extends the sentence of individuals involved in incidents.

To do this, this center, composed of twelve buildings and with a ratio of three inmates to one guard, has installed one hundred megapixel and vandal-war IP cameras from the manufacturer Axis Communications that allow a zoom in detail and in real time to visualize the expressions of the prisoners before and during a conflict to act immediately.

Between axis network cameras installed, five megapixels, fixed models P3367-V and P3367-VE are found, as well as the P3301-V dome, that prior to its installation the network was configured in order to ensure adequate bandwidth for the new security system "with a close collaboration between the IT department and prison operations that has been of utmost importance", explains Maurice Myrie, IT director and information security officer for the Worcester County Office.

All images captured by the cameras are archived, since prison officials use them in investigations to identify the parties involved in incidents and thus initiate charges against specific individuals, to whom their sentences may be extended.

"The greatest value for us is the evidence of the video we now have," says Myrie.. If a picture is worth a thousand words, now we have 3.000. If someone is moving their hand to hit another, that emotion is captured and the video can show the intent. The resolution of axis cameras is so high that we can see the emotion on a prisoner's face and get a better understanding of that person's intentions and whether it is hurting someone.".

So it was with a video that helped investigators identify members of two rival gangs in the middle of a fight that ended with a stabbing., thanks to which the participants were charged in a court of law and received an additional sentence.

"Once the cameras were installed, we were able to discover almost every place where an inmate could hide and be used to commit criminal acts.", points out Myrie.

This facility has become a model for other centers and countries. As this person in charge points out, in the short term material obtained from recorded incidents will also be used as part of a training programme for new staff members, that by seeing sequences of real events they will know how each situation was responded to, improve performance and even prevent it by having greater knowledge of prisoners' reactions.

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