[Security Director News]

If you’re the administrator of a jail, it’s never a good day when you release the wrong prisoner. Unfortunately, the dirty little secret among the correction facilities is that it happens, according to Steve Morrison, chief deputy of Alabama’s Madison County Jail.

However, the Madison County Jail recently deployed 3D facial recognition technology that Morrison told Security Director News will prevent that from ever happening again. “The return on investment is avoiding the embarrassment of allowing somebody to get out that’s not supposed to get out, especially if they’re a triple murderer,” Morrison said. “We’ve actually had a couple of guys with the same name that were assigned to the same pod, and one was asleep and they called for this guy and [the other one] said, ‘yeah, that’s me.’ And they took him downstairs and let him out—he was sentenced to 10 years in prison,” Morrison said. “That’s what helps you get the approval and the funding to be able to buy equipment like this. Things like that happen. … Humans make mistakes.”

With the assistance of the new technology, which consists of a camera and its software, prisoners will have their picture taken when they enter the system. The technology, from a company called National Security Resources, maps 40,000 points around the eyes and bridge of the nose and is 99.2% effective, Tip Turpin, NSR’s vice president of marketing, told SDN.  …

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