According to KJZZ radio, a member of the NPR (American Public Radio) network in Arizona, a computer bug has kept hundreds of inmates eligible for early release in prison.
Public radio reportedly obtained information, directly from the state’s Department of Corrections, confirming a concern with the inmate management software used in many Arizona prisons.
This software, ACIS, stands for Arizona Correctional Information System, would be unable to take into account inmate early release credits. However, in Arizona, for certain minor offenses such as drug possession, it is possible to claim early release by accumulating these credits distributed in the event of good behavior or participation in the life of the detention center.
A known and ignored problem
According to KJZZ information, prison authorities have been aware of the situation since 2019, when Bill 1310 defining the early release program was passed in the Arizona Senate.
Questioned by the radio, the department of correctional services recognized the existence of a computer problem but refused to specify the nature. However, the institution explains that it has identified 733 inmates eligible for the early release program who have not asserted their right. According to KJZZ informants, this figure would be far below the reality.
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ACIS is a customized version of software developed by Business & Decision North America known as the “Mi-Case Offender Management System”. This same software would be used in several prisons in Maryland and Indiana.
According to the Arizona prison authorities, the software is being updated to take into account the new sentence remission calculation.
For their part, the whistleblowers within the correctional services, specify that their hierarchy had been alerted on numerous occasions, since 2019, of the software malfunctions. Several employees of the service had even asked not to use this solution.
These warnings would have been roundly ignored by a management confident in this software for which it had spent more than 24 million dollars in costs of deployment and updates.
Source : KJZZ
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