cers and kept under control through the assistance of different types of security. There are a wide variety of technologies that are in use and many under development.

These are not the only sources to secure prisons. A number of years ago, Florida was having quite some difficulty with prisoners escaping. In 1988 they had 38,059 prisoners of which 139 had escaped, an unacceptable number no doubt. So in an effort to lower the number of escapes and maintain a safer environment for officers and inmates, the Florida Department of Corrections developed and implemented a comprehensive external security-auditing program. The goal was not to set-up a point system, but rather to have a second set of eyes, the auditors, work jointly with the facility staff to help identify security related problems. After the first year of this audit, the escapes dropped to 97 with an increase in inmate population of 5000, and after just one more year, the number dropped to 57 with another increase of 3500 prisoners. As a test, the FDOC had stopped the audit for a two-year period and observed that the escape rates had once again increased. They came to the conclusion that the audits in fact made a huge influence so they decided to reinstate them and have used this method ever since. Their studies showed that the escapes were due to poor procedures and practice and not because of inadequate or faulty technology [9].

Prisons, not to be confused with jails, are defined as state institutions where prisoners are locked up after they’re convicted of a sentence greater than a year. As previously stated, there are four classifications for prisons. Their goal no matter what type they are is to prevent inmate escapes, protect staff members as well as the prisoners, along with preventing the smuggling of contraband into the facility. Minimum security prisons, contradicting the vision of prisons in which Hollywood has injected in our minds, are more like a rehabilitation facility. Prisoners here are typically first time offenders that are not likely to be of any danger or a threat to escape. Most of them take advantage of the facilities training programs, education, and counseling. Medium security prisons are a step up from minimum ones in that they exercise more security practices. Head counts, surveillance, and a barbed wire fence are a few of the measures one might observe in this type of confinement. They should however not be confused with maximum security for reasons such as shared living quarters and working without constant supervision. Traditionally, maximum security prisons are made up of a lot of high tech security as they house many of the nation’s more dangerous offenders. Prisoners of these facilities are under constant surveillance by both officers and closed-circuit television. They live in rows of individual cells where one officer is able to watch over many of them at once. In the case of an escape attempt, the perimeters of these prisons are surrounded by either double or sometimes triple walled structures. There are also more modern day maximum security prisons such as the Oak Park Heights prison here in Minnesota. These still use the same maximum security but

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