Inside Ashland County jail in north central Ohio, jail administrator Barry Backensto slides a bulky black watch on another staff member.
“That would go on there like that,” he said, adjusting the strap. “It's just a big watch… like an oversized Apple watch.”
He’s showcasing the correctional facilities’ newest tech: a biometric bracelet that three incarcerated people in the facility will wear.
Much like a smartwatch, the bracelet tracks vitals: it monitors resting heart rate, oxygen levels, skin temperature and more.
But instead of tracking personal fitness, these bracelets help jail officials monitor the health of their inmates. Nurses and corrections officers are alerted when an incarcerated person’s heart rate spikes or oxygen levels dip.
“I know my inmates are taken care of,” Backensto said.
More than 200 people died within Ohio’s correctional facilities in 2022, according to the most recent data from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Jail officials, like Backensto, believe the new piece of technology could prevent future deaths. But privacy rights groups are skeptical of the tech.
A new piece of surveillance tech
Ashland County and neighboring Richland County are the first to have integrated these bracelets in Ohio. The tech has been embraced by around 75 institutions across the country, according to 4Sight Labs, the company that manufactures the bracelets.
They’re needed to address the health complications brought upon from substance use, said Ashland County Sheriff Kurt Schneider.
“Almost 80% of the inmates that come through those doors are on at least one illegal or some type of substance,” Schneider said.
That’s why the county paid around $40,000 for the bracelets and the system that supports them. County Commissioner Jim Justice said they used opioid settlement dollars to pay for the three year contract.
“It became evident that you couldn't catch everybody and how they were doing in the jail, especially when they're on drugs, coming off drugs,” he said. “For most of these offenders, it's a corrective action. It shouldn't be a death sentence.”
Staff typically check on inmates every hour. But nurse Cindy Gorcyzca said the tech has helped jail staff catch emergencies earlier. Just three days into the bracelets’ use, the system alerted her staff about an inmate’s low heart rate that had resulted from alcohol withdrawal.
“He was admitted to the ICU,” Gorcyzca said. “Would we have caught it? Yeah. But I know this alarm triggered us to check on him a little sooner than when we were anticipating checking on him.”
Privacy rights groups are skeptical
Not everyone is convinced this surveillance tech is needed.
“It's important not to underestimate the kind of dehumanizing aspect of having something that's measuring everything that you do,” said Kabbas Azhar with EPIC, a nonprofit devoted to privacy rights.
Azhar said bracelets like these collect intimate data – data that could be sold to insurance companies or used to train AI models.
Plus, in many institutions, like Ashland County, wearing them is not voluntary. If a nurse determines an inmate has a health risk, they must wear it or be confined to certain parts of the jail.
Azhar said if jails want to improve health responses, they should look to staffing. He sees the bracelets as part of a concerning trend.
“Over the course of the last few decades there has been an increase in various technologies that are used to surveil and exploit people incarcerated,” he said. “These take shape in different forms, and they're often in attempts at trying to fix something, but we shouldn't actually fix that, instead it's just another way to gain profit.”
Ashland County Jail declined to make any incarcerated people wearing the bracelets available for comment.
Focusing on preventing deaths
Jail officials object to that claim. They say their number one goal is to save lives.
People have died in Richland and Ashland county jails before, and Sheriff Schneider said costly lawsuits have followed.
“It does boil down to some dollars and cents because if we don't take good care of these folks, if we don't provide the resources necessary to keep them healthy and safe while they're here, and they end up getting hurt or die – which we hope never happens. But in the event it does, it could break the county,” he said.
4Sight Labs founders said they do not mine data and abide by all HIPAA laws.
“We're not tracking anyone or anything. It's just really just about making it safer and better for everyone,” said founder Ian Osteyee.
As for Backensto, he said preventing deaths is more important than a hypothetical privacy violation.
“If my dad was in there, would I want these folks doing as much as they could to take care of my father?” he said. “Yeah you would. Who gives a crap that somebody knows his heart rate from two weeks ago?”
