Posted on Tue, Mar. 11, 2008
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$19 million computer system can't even count inmates
By MICHAEL A. BELL
mbell@sunherald.com
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GULFPORT --
Harrison County officials use clipboards and highlighters to count inmates at the overcrowded jail. Their $19 million computer system can't do it."The jail management system sucks," Sheriff Melvin Brisolara said.
When county leaders ask the sheriff how many inmates are booked at the jail, he dispatches deputies to walk the hallways, peek into the cell doors and tally the inmates one by one. It takes hours.
When county leaders ask for a breakdown of inmates booked at the jail, public defender Lisa Collums pores over stacks of papers with the names of 1,000 inmates, making horizontal swipes - orange for inmates charged with misdemeanors, yellow for those not indicted, and so on. It takes days.
But before the county joined the Mississippi Automated System Project, this critical information was available with the click of a mouse, officials said.
The MASP jail software, funded by millions of tax dollars, actually was developed overseas - either in Ukraine or Romania, MASP Director Julian Allen isn't certain - and county officials complain that they can't run a simple query to do the most mundane tasks.
"It's affecting me," Collums said. "I work all the time."
Collums needs this data fast to get inmates before the judge, out of the Larkin Smith Road jail and off the county's dime.
But the meticulous case-by-case process takes days, "as opposed to saying, 'Give me all your misdemeanors' and it spits them out," public defender Glenn Rishel said.
The drawback is staggering - dozens of inmates charged with petty crimes remaining behind bars, sleeping on makeshift cots throughout the jail, a constant source of acrimony, lawsuits, and the latest, a jail break.
Brisolara last month gave MASP officials an ultimatum: fix the problem in 45 days or find another client.
"I'll have to look somewhere else, because I've got to get this done," the sheriff said. "We've been in limbo now for six years. It's time to get it fixed. Time to move on."
'Useless' system
Launched in 2002, the MASP promised an information-sharing network to link Coast government agencies - police, fire, jails, courts - by computers. Streamlining this information could help solve crime faster and create more unity.
The University of Southern Mississippi is overseeing the pilot project, which was backed by Sen. Thad Cochran and former Sen. Trent Lott.
In addition to an efficient jail management system, patrol officers, using laptops, could swap real-time information - mug shots, criminal history, suspect alerts - instead of phoning other agencies.
MICHAEL A. BELL
