Soon, scanners to check jail visitors in Tamil Nadu

In a bid to stop people from making unwarranted and repeated visits -- which often led to smuggling of contrabands and other items -- to the Central prisons in the State by forging identity, biometric readers may soon be installed at the prison entrances as a foolproof method to ascertain those calling on the jailbirds.

The biometric details of every visitor would be recorded along with the name and address and if the same persons turned up again, the system would alert the prison staff. “Such a system will help a great deal in curtailing smuggling of contrabands into the prisons and other criminal activities. In most cases, it is the habitual offenders who repeatedly come to meet the prisoners either to pass on the contrabands or to hatch criminal plans. This system will put an end to this,” Coimbatore Central Prison superintendent S Rajendran said.

Prison officials hoped that the biometric readers would itself act as a deterrent for such offenders from visiting the prisons. As per the prison manuals, a remand prisoner was permitted to meet visitors three times a week and only one interview every fortnight was allowed for convicted prisoners.

The system would first be implemented in the Puzhal prison near Chennai over the next few weeks.

Based on its success, it could be implemented in other prisons across the State in the next three months. At present, most of the State prisons already have biometric systems to ascertain the identity of the prisoners.      

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The New Indian Express
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