The Hindu : New Delhi News : CCTVs to strengthen surveillance at Tihar Law & order

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 17, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

CCTVs to strengthen surveillance at Tihar Law & order

Technological
up-gradation is a welcome step, but more important is an intelligent handling of the equipment. Devesh K. Pandey tells more….

Dealing with an acute problem of overcrowding within its high walls and seeking to serve as a model for prisons across the country, Asia’s largest prison complex, Delhi’s Tihar Central Jail, is about to get 150 high-tech closed-circuit television cameras to strengthen its surveillance mechanism.

In all probability, these cameras will replace the old and “outdated” surveillance system by this year-end. “The existing cameras are about 15 years old and definitely they are far behind the latest CCTVs that offer a wide range of services and are more effective in terms of resolution and coverage,” said an official.

The new cameras would be similar to those installed at airports. They would have an in-built mechanism to detect out-of-the-ordinary events on the basis of the data fed into their software defining the nature of different unusual occurrences. On an average, 15 CCTVs would be installed in one jail to keep a close watch on the activities of inmates, and also the prison staff.

Each jail will have its own CCTV control room and they will be connected to the main Control Room located at the prison headquarters. This is expected to help check any error in spotting occurrences requiring attention.

The new surveillance system would be more effective in monitoring inmates who are more likely to indulge in violence. In the long run, the jail authorities can also profile the behaviour pattern of inmates by closely monitoring their daily activities.

Another area where the jail authorities have upgraded the system is installation of multi-zone metal detectors that carry out more precise screening of people entering the prison. An extraordinary feature of these detectors is that they point exactly at the place in the body where any metallic object is hidden. Besides, X-ray scanners have also been installed.

The authorities are also pursuing a project for procuring mobile phone jammers for all the jails. What they have right now is a mobile phone detector which is virtually ineffective when it comes to finding the location of a mobile set.

The detector can just indicate that a mobile phone falling under its range is in use.

“We are trying to procure the jammers and have also contacted some companies in this regard,” said the official.

Law enforcement officials strongly feel that introduction of state-of-the-art gadgets to strengthen security inside jails should be encouraged. In fact, technological up-gradation that makes a system function more efficiently is always welcome, but more important is an intelligent handling of the equipment. This is possible only by training people to operate the system. Machines are, after all, just machines and it is the men behind them who matter more.

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