Hard time goes high tech at Knox County Jail; contracts for bid

The Knox County Detention Facility holds more than 1,000 inmates. The average stay for most is 12 to 14 days. Those couple of weeks of hard time behind bars are now high-tech.

Gone are the old Hollywood images of the county jail that serves bread and water while only allowing inmates to make one phone call. The Knox County jail on Maloneyville Road features electronic touch-screen kiosks where inmates can video conference with family, order food, schedule haircuts, electronically manage their money, and handle medical services.

While buying snacks, having visitors, and receiving medicine is nothing new to jails, the high-tech methods of delivering these services are modern. The electronics are designed to reduce paperwork, keep better track of prisoners, and maintain up-to-date records.

The county has been able to implement these technological upgrades by contracting with private vendors.

"It has really brought the sheriff's office from manual to electronic over the last few years. And we've done that through contracting with no cost to the taxpayers," said Rodney Bivens, a Knox County Sheriff's Office assistant chief deputy who is over corrections and personnel for the department.

"Prior to these contracts... everything was done on paper forms and kept in files somewhere."

Now some major contracts are about to be up for grabs and the county aims to negotiate better bargains for the services behind bars. Bivens said he hopes the competitive bidding process will allow the jail to save taxpayers some money, but said it could also help generate more revenue.

"These are some huge contracts," said Bivens. "One contract is for the communications system we use for phone calls, video visitation, and electronic banking. Another contract is for the pharmacy and our electronic medical system. Then we want to put a request for bids on a third contract for our commissary."

You can read the rest of the story RIGHT HERE. The link also includes the two TV stories (yes, they're different!) that ran at 6 and 11 yesterday.