By William Jackson
GCN.com
OKLAHOMA COUNTY — The Oklahoma County Jail is a busy, aging facility. A 13-story building built in 1991 in downtown Oklahoma City, it books about 44,000 detainees a year and it has been troubled with inmate violence because of the difficulty of adequately supervising its 30 housing units, or “pods,” that hold up to 100 inmates each.
In 2009 the jail was averaging about 300 altercations per month, some small, some serious, said Capt. David Baisden, of the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office. But the installation three years ago of a high-definition video system to monitor the pods and other areas of the jail has cut the number of incidents by 90 percent and streamlined investigations and prosecutions without hiring new personnel.
“It has changed our lives,” said Baisden, who heads the jail’s support services. “Our frivolous lawsuits have gone down.”
Full story: A picture worth 200 guards: Jail installs HD video, violence drops 90 percent