BENTON COUNTY : Jail’s gang database a mouse click away
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
BENTONVILLE —The Benton County jail has new software that can provide information electronically about inmates with gang ties to other agencies, officials announced Friday.
Capt. Hunter Petray, the jail commander, said sharing gang intelligence that the jail has compiled for two years until now had been limited to paper.
“The only thing we had was a hard copy,” Petray said. “That’s the only way we could share the information was to print out a hard copy.” Now, with a new software upgrade, deputies can access the jail gang data from laptops in their patrol cars. Any law enforcement agency can request the information and receive it via e-mail, Petray said.
The upgrade, which was free through the county’s software provider, Southern Software Inc., has limitations, though.
Only jail staff can add to the gang database, which includes information such as tattoos, names, addresses, associates and criminal histories. And the information can’t be sorted or accessed by category such as gang name.
“If the deputy doesn’t have a name to go on, they have to search each file for what they’re looking for,” Petray said.
That’s similar to access the Washington County sheriff’s office has to the gang data complied at its jail, Maj. Randall Denzer said.
“Everyone in the department can access the computer program,” Denzer said. “But we’re not so up to speed that we can pull up data by a distinguishing feature, like a tattoo or the name of a gang.” The Sebastian County jail notes gang tattoos on jail booking data, but that’s about as far as the facility goes in tracking that kind of information.
“If we see someone who’s all ‘tattooed-up,’ we may contact the detectives or a task force, but we leave most of that [intelligence gathering ] up to the agencies,” Capt. Mike Conger said.
Police and sheriff ’s offices in Washington, Benton and Sebastian counties meet every two months or so to share gang intelligence and leads on cases, but there is no central computer database. Some agencies have their own, while others have nothing.
Petray said about 20 of the roughly 520 inmates in the Benton County jail are included in the jail’s gang database.
He wouldn’t talk about which gangs are represented, saying an inmate’s affiliation doesn’t necessarily mean those gangs are operating in the county. He said gang members already may be doing prison time or were extradited from some other part of the country.
In the past, however, Petray and officials from other law enforcement agencies in Northwest Arkansas have said they’ve identified people with ties to gangs that include Sureno 12, Nortenos, Folk Nation, 18 th Street gang, Crips, Blood and MS 13.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
