Not only have we been told the cameras stopped working, but also that if they were working they wouldn’t have filmed inside the cell.
Why wouldn’t they want to film the prisoners?
“Not only have we been told the cameras stopped working, but also that if they were working they wouldn’t have filmed inside the cell.
Why wouldn’t they want to film the prisoners?”
I work in a maximum security facility. (But not federal facility) Coincidentally my job involves servicing the video and electronic security systems, and quite often recovering video from the system at the request of security personnel conducting investigations.
None of our cameras are inside cells, or pointing in cells.
The only place that happens is the mental health observation cells, and those are not recorded (I assume because of HIPPA rules). They go to a bank of monitors that are watched 24/7/365.
Even in our Special Housing Unit (SHU) the cameras are in all common areas, and all corridors and the rec areas. They are NOT looking in individual cells. I don’t know of any place where that is done. You can tell a lot just by seeing who goes where in a hallway and when.
All video feeds to a central system that records everything digitally. The entire system, including the subsystems in the areas where cameras are located, are secured and locked down and highly restricted. Only a few people can get the keys. The guards do not have the access required to disable any cameras or microphones, short of putting something over a lens, which is obvious and easily attributable to the person doing so.
I find it hard to believe that the two cameras that happened to be pointing toward the entrance to the facility’s most notorious and most critical inmate’s cell just happened to fail just then, and at the same time. Someone had to disable them, and that someone had to be much higher up the chain of command than the guards on duty.
Knowing what I know about how things work and how things are done, I can say that this thing stinks to high heaven.
Privacy trumps security?