Preserving Life with
Biometrics
Lena Heaney and David Sanders
In-custody deaths are becoming more prevalent in today’s society due to various factors including, but not limited to: increased drug use, illness, trauma, alcohol intoxication, and mental health. Law enforcement and corrections officers are struggling to find ways to prevent these deaths and are looking for solutions to monitor people’s health from the point of arrest, through transport, and into detention. Tools like body-worn cameras, detention surveillance systems, and health and wellness checks are being used to try and prevent in-custody deaths. However, with the widespread use of fentanyl and increased suicide rates, deaths are becoming more frequent and harder to prevent than ever before. Biometric monitoring tools have opened a new wheelhouse of capabilities in terms of monitoring inmate wellness across the country.
Biometric Monitoring
Biometric monitoring is a tool used to monitor inmates’ vitals, including heart rate trends, skin temperature, SPo2, and motion. Officers then receive notifications when a health anomaly is detected. If an inmate’s heart rate spikes or drops below the average level, a notification will trigger an officer to render aid. Without an officer presently doing a health check, biometric monitoring will detect suicide attempts, drug overdoses, heart attacks, and other wellness crises.
Through a combination of biometric monitoring and artificial intelligence, 12 reported lives have been saved in jails across the United States. Biometrics have not only saved lives, but have saved careers, improved medical decision-making, and decreased monetary burdens on communities. 30 agencies around the US are using biometric monitoring to prevent in-custody deaths; many of which have seen proven results. Shelby County, AL, Avondale, AZ, and Broomfield County, CO have all spoken out to the public on the benefits of using biometrics in their facilities.
Broomfield County Sheriff’s Office, CO
Broomfield County, CO Sheriff’s Office was one of the first departments to use biometric monitoring to protect the health and wellness of detainees. Within the first year of testing the new technology, they were able to save three lives. Commander Shawn Laughlin, MCJ, CJM reported two of the lives saved being from drug overdoses and stated, “The drug ingestions were unequivocally not on our radar because the inmate did not give us proper information during the pre-booking process. We did not know, nor did they disclose, that they had both taken various drugs prior to coming into incarceration” (Laughlin, 2023). Approximately 14 hours after arriving at the jail, the biometric monitoring tools alerted correctional staff that the detainees were experiencing a health anomaly. Officers were then able to render aid and save their lives. Scenarios like this are not uncommon in jails and correctional facilities across the country, and there is no way to tell what an individual has done before getting arrested.
Policies regarding new technology vary from agency to agency but Broomfield County, CO is the perfect example of good policy. They knew to put monitors on these specific individuals due to their refusal to acknowledge the pre-booking intake forms. They treated these instances like a code alarm to help with decision-making, and in this case, biometric monitoring combined with good practices, resulted in multiple lives being saved in Broomfield, CO. A similar scenario recently occurred in Avondale, AZ.
City of Avondale, AZ
Deaths in jails are not just caused by suicides, drug overdoses, positional asphyxia, stress, etc. Inmates often have underlying health conditions that may be unknown to the facility. An instance like this was recognized in Avondale, AZ, where biometric monitoring devices are also being used. Detention Sergeant Paul Wilson was notified by a biometric device that an inmate’s heart rate had plummeted to 30 beats per minute, well below the average heart rate threshold for a healthy individual. Paul stated, “Upon checking on the inmate, we found the subject unresponsive and not actively breathing,” and because of the notification, “we were able to quickly render aid and give the subject medical attention in a timely manner. The subject regained consciousness after multiple rounds of CPR and was transported to the hospital awake, alive, and feeling better” (Wilson, 2023). They later learned that the inmate had an incident of the same sort earlier that year caused by an untreated heart condition. Instances like this are a clear representation of how unpredictable in-custody deaths can be and how biometrics can be the first step in detecting these. Like Avondale, the Shelby County, AL Sheriff’s office had success detecting health and wellness crises.
Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, AL
In Shelby County, AL, the jail’s leadership has developed policies involving biometric monitoring to continuously assess the health and wellness of high-risk detainees. A local reporter, Aajene Robinson, from WBRC stated, “Whenever there is an incident at the jail, the sheriff’s office discusses
ways they can prevent them from happening.” (Robinson, 2023). Biometric monitoring is a new tool that the jail staff is using to prevent these incidents.
Last November, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office started using biometric monitoring in their facility to combat the unpredictability of the health of high-risk inmates and saved a life within a month of having the monitors on their inmates. Over the last few months, they saved another two lives. In a news interview, Captain Russell Bedsole talks about biometrics and says, “so, it’s sort of that two-way street where we are serving our citizens by using technology that is going to make sure that our inmates are safe and secure, but we are also making this job a little bit easier for our employees along the way” (Bedsole and Robinson, 2023). Biometric monitoring has benefited the jail staff, the community, and most importantly, the lives of inmates.
Benefits
Biometric monitoring is a tool that ultimately saves lives and careers but also has many underlying benefits that positively affect multiple parties involved. They help enhance the ability to identify a health and wellness crisis and reduce medical response times when a crisis is happening. Biometrics provides a way to monitor a person’s health without actually having someone physically present and monitoring goes beyond what can be done visually. In-custody deaths have huge financial burdens and biometrics can help alleviate this in communities. Also, biometric monitoring can provide transparency and accountability, building trust between the community and law enforcement.
Conclusion
Biometric monitoring tools are a proven way to prevent in-custody deaths. From the point of arrest, through transportation, and into detention, the well-being of humans will be considered and acted upon as needed. These tools assist in saving lives, saving careers, decreasing monetary burdens, and strengthening trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Combining these monitors with body cameras and other technology will be the future of preventing in-custody deaths. Biometrics are being honored in many facilities across the US and Paul Wilson from Avondale, AZ said “We are very thankful and appreciative to have a revolutionary product to assist us with custody care” (Wilson, 2023).
Lena Heaney is a Sales Operations Administrator at 4Sight Labs. She recently graduated from the University of Oregon with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and a minor in Leadership and Administrative Skills. She grew up in a small town in Colorado and currently lives in San Francisco. She is passionate about the use of technology in Public Safety to prevent in-custody deaths. For more information, she can be contacted at lena@4sightlabs.com
David Sanders currently serves as the Vice President of Business Development at 4Sight Labs. Before joining the team at 4Sight Labs, David spent over a decade in the Army Special Forces, where he deployed to numerous countries in the Middle East. Additionally, he has a Bachelor of Science in organizational leadership and a master of science in strategic leadership. For more information, he can be contacted at Sanders@4sightlabs.com
References
Avondale Police Department uses 4Sight labs’ biometric monitoring tools to render aid and save a life. Corrections1. (2023, September 15). https://www.corrections1.com/products/fitness-mental-health-wellness/press-releases/avondale-police-department-uses-4sight-labs-biometric-monitoring-tools-to-render-aid-and-save-a-life-ONjE7chK1XDZnJTJ/
Broomfieldsaveslives. (2023). Vimeo. Retrieved October 31, 2023, from https://vimeo.com/4sightlabs/broomfieldsaveslives.
Robinson, A. (2023, February 14). Shelby Co. jail’s heart rate monitors saving inmates’ lives. https://www.wbrc.com. https://www.wbrc.com/2023/02/14/shelby-co-jails-heart-rate-monitors-saving-inmates-lives/