COBB COUNTY IMATE SEARCH TRIAL

“The people who are in jail and are being subjected to surveillance here are the people who do not have the money to get out on bail. And there is a serious risk that this information will be sold,” Wiener said.

COBB COUNTY IMATE SEARCH TRIAL

Jake Wiener, counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said using them to collect health information from Georgia jail inmates - most of whom are awaiting trial - would be “dystopian.” Privacy advocates sharply criticize jails’ use of electronic wristbands. The Cobb Sheriff’s Office announced last year it was trying out wristbands marketed by Alabama-based Black Creek Integrated Systems. The DeKalb and Fulton jails are working with Alpharetta-based Talitrix, a technology company led by Justin Hawkins, a Kennesaw State University graduate and former head of the Forsyth County Republican Party who cofounded Compass Neuro, a medical cannabis oil company. “In short, the technology is a tool and a supplement, but not a cure for understaffing and not a reason to become less attentive to the needs of people in the jail’s custody.” “Anything that might help save a life is worth investing in,” she said. Michele Deitch, who directs the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, agreed the wristbands could be beneficial but said they cannot become “a replacement for well-trained staff.” His office contracted for the wristbands in 2021 and has already tested them. His cause of death hasn’t been determined, the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office has said.įulton Sheriff Patrick Labat cited Thompson’s death while asking Fulton commissioners last month for $2.1 million in emergency funding for 1,000 wristbands and related expenses. Among them was Lashawn Thompson, a homeless and mentally ill man who was found dead in the psychiatric wing of the Fulton jail last year. Between 2009 and October of 2022, 182 people who were held in these four county jails died, including from suicide, drug overdoses and natural causes, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation. Jailers are eyeing the wristbands as they scramble to prevent more inmate deaths.

The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office is studying the same technology, which can monitor an inmate’s heart rate. (TNS) - DeKalb County jailers are preparing to join their counterparts in Fulton and Cobb in tracking the whereabouts and health of their inmates with high-tech wristbands.

Cobb county imate search