DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710310646

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LAURENCE HAMMACK, THE ROANOKE TIMES 

DATELINE: ROANOKE                           LENGTH:   43 lines

BRACELETS AND BAR CODES TRACK JAIL INMATES

They don't just book inmates at the Roanoke City Jail anymore.

They also bar code them.

Starting this month, the Sheriff's Office has been issuing a plastic bracelet to each inmate with his or her name, photograph and a bar code that links the inmate to the jail's computerized record system.

For now, the nonremovable bracelets are being used primarily for identification. With an average inmate population of about 750, ``it's kind of hard to remember who everybody is,'' Maj. George McMillan said.

In the future, the $75,000 system will have more high-tech applications, Sheriff Alvin Hudson said. The day is coming when authorities will use the bar-coded bracelets and scanners to track the movements of inmates through the jail like groceries on a checkout line.

As each inmate enters the jail, he or she is photographed by a video camera that sends the image to a computer database, making the Polaroid mug shot a thing of the past. The image is electronically stored along with other information - charge, age, race, date of birth, Social Security number, physical description, even a tattoo inventory.

The bar codes can provide instant access to information on inmates, such as who's on their visitor lists, what kind of medication they might be receiving from the infirmary, and how much money they have in their inmate accounts.

So if an inmate wants to get a candy bar from the commissary and charge it to his account, the transaction will be completed in seconds with the sweep of a bracelet.

And as the database grows, it could provide an invaluable resource for police.

For example, a convenience store is robbed and all the clerk can remember about the assailant is that he was a middle-aged white man with a tattoo on his upper right arm.

A quick computer query calls to the screen everyone matching that description who has done time in the jail - complete with close-up shots of each tattoo.

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