New Security Cameras Improve Operations at Warren County Regional Jail

By Rachel Leber

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Security cameras are an important way for correctional facilities to maintain smooth and efficient operations on a daily basis. The Warren County Regional Jail in Bowling Green demonstrated its awareness of this immense value for operations when it announced that they would soon invest $134,755 in new camera equipment for the facility.

The announcement was made on Feb. 16, when the expense was approved by fiscal court. Currently, the Warren County Regional Jail has more than 100 cameras installed throughout the facility, but the camera upgrade will mean adding 86 new cameras in addition to an upgrade of the server system that holds all digital imagery for the facility.

The jail’s main control room is currently the central area where jail staff views security camera footage. More often than not, the view that deputies have of inmates are obscured as far as the residential units are concerned, and there are many blind spots that are not able to be monitored at any given moment.

The upcoming camera upgrade will mean the placement of a security camera in each housing unit — a benefit that up until now has not been afforded to the facility. With the installations of the new cameras, each deputy monitoring housing pods will be able to see almost everything happening inside that pod, and those blind spots will be covered.

The cameras will provide jail staff with irreplaceable evidence for critical incidents, and multiple assault investigations of the past would have resulted in a quicker resolution and identification of the aggressor if these cameras had been in place, according to Stephen Harmon, jailer for Warren County in a recent article in the Bowling Green Daily News.

Overall, the hope is that the new cameras will mean greater safety and security for inmates as well as jail staff, and will mean smoother operations for the jail.