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After staff shooting, prisons division seeks drone detection, mail scanning and transport bureau expansion
Summary
Following a spring transport ambush that left three IDOC staff wounded, the Idaho Department of Correction requested funding for digital mail scanning, drone detection, phone-call transcription, expansion of a transport bureau with 12 positions and a federal body-worn camera pilot.
The Idaho Department of Correction asked the Joint Finance Preparations Committee on Feb. 4 for new and ongoing funding to harden prisons against contraband and threats after an incident last spring in which staff were shot during a transport.
Noah Peterson, budget and policy analyst with the Legislative Services Office, outlined supplemental requests tied to an April incident that the agency said revealed vulnerabilities when an inmate who had been transported to a hospital was being returned by facility staff. "Three IDOC staff were shot and then the suspect and the inmate are suspected of committing two murders before being apprehended, 36 hours later," Peterson told the committee as background for several proposed safety upgrades.
The department proposed a package labeled "advanced surveillance technology," initially described as a $795,000 supplemental to implement digital…
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