Skip to Content
Case Studies

Arkansas – ADC

To increase safety, integrity, and reliability, the ADC commissioned the InTouch Security Portal, a mobile extension of eOMIS®, that allows staff to accurately document information in real-time while performing duties in the Ad Seg Unit.

A true partner, Marquis has provided, maintained, and enhanced our mission critical Offender Management System for over 25-years.

Dexter Payne, Secretary
Arkansas Department of Correction

Summary

Since its inception, the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC) relied on handwritten logs and an officer’s memory to track an inmate’s well-being during a segregation visit. Logs containing information for 50+ cells often suffered from spelling errors, grammatical issues, incorrect names and a significant lack of validity due to illegibility.

Arkansas Department of Corrections needed a solution that required officers to be in front of an inmate’s cell in order to accurately and adequately report on an inmate’s well-being, their requests, and how effectively inmate was managed in the Ad Seg Unit. Additionally, supervisors wanted a solution that allowed them to monitor staff performance and compliance in real-time while enabling officers to work offline due to Wi-Fi connectivity issues in many cell-blocks.


The Arkansas DOC

The Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC) manages over 18,000 inmates in twenty-one correctional facilities and over 65,000 probation and parole clients out of sixty-seven probation & parole offices. The ADC has been using the Marquis eOMIS® Offender Management Solution to manage their inmate and offender population for nearly 20-years.


Challenge

Ad Seg units are high risk, labor intensive, and often the focal point for litigation. The historical model for documentation of staff activities in an Ad Seg Unit relies upon the common hand written log or typed form. With myriad staff, including officers, clinicians, supervisors, etc. entering and exiting the unit each day, keeping up with everyone and if they’ve completed their assigned responsibilities is often very challenging. Attempting to reconstruct events and tasks from these logs months later in response to grievances and litigation proves to be impossible more often than not.

Trying to move to mobile technology in these high risk and hardened units is also difficult due to often limited wi-fi connectivity to the Offender Management System.


Objective

To improve the accuracy and timeliness of tracking Ad Seg Unit activity, a solution needed to track cell visits and inmate interviews, log staff entry from other disciplines (i.e., classification, psychology, etc.), work on an Android tablet, function where wi-fi is not available, is simple to use, easy to pass along to the next shift, does not require redundant duplication of data, and ensures activities such as cell visits and inmate interviews can be accurately tracked.

To achieve these goals, four primary objectives were established:

  1. improve availability of inmate information to staff
  2. fundamentally enhance the way all in-unit staff activities are tracked
  3. increase accuracy and accountability of staff performing duties
  4. maintain full integration with eOMIS®

Solution

To increase safety, integrity, and reliability, the ADC commissioned the InTouch Security Portal, a mobile extension of eOMIS®, that allows staff to accurately document information in real-time while performing duties in the Ad Seg Unit.

To achieve this, during the initial set-up phase, durable near-field communication (NFC) tags were affixed to the front of cells in the Ad Seg housing units with one tag for each bed within the cell. The tags are tamperproof, waterproof, nearly impossible to electronically manipulate, and require no power supply or batteries, making them quick, flexible, and secure to deploy anywhere.

As inmates are moved into a unit, the NFC tag ID is part of their cell assignment information entered into eOMIS®. When staff scans the cell ID tag using the InTouch Security Portal on an Android tablet, it auto-identifies the inmate and the officer then logs activity details in the tablet. The digitization of staff cell visits has allowed the ADC to take a focused view of inmate safety and provides staff more time to ensure proper security practices throughout the facility. Staff can now execute and view rounds with speed and insight using real-time information to automate yard calls, food calls, segregation rounds, cell clean ups, shower calls, and more. Inmate requests such as health, classification, grievance, etc., are also recorded in the Security Portal. This provides a tracking mechanism for inmate requests and ensures appropriate staff are notified if appropriate follow-up is not complete.

The InTouch Security Portal takes the guesswork out of security round compliance by giving corrections professionals a fast, smart, and productive solution to track inmate observations, interactions and requests. Data is secured using integrated permission management which restricts access to information based on physical location, job assignment, and network address that helps staff develop a pattern and practice of building solid and verifiable data that cannot be modified, edited, or deleted.