Jailbreaks may lead to cardiac arrests

Published on Saturday 15 November 2008 18:42

THE Scottish Prison Service is set to invest tens of thousands of pounds in cutting-edge technology to stop inmates escaping hidden in the back of laundry vans or delivery trucks.

Human presence detection systems, which are attached to a vehicle and can pick up heartbeats inside, will be installed in two high-security prisons in Scotland early next year.

Although a spokesman for the prison service last night denied there was a problem with people breaching security in this way, about 70,000 will be spent on the technology.

The detection systems are more commonly used at ports and border controls in the US and Europe, including Dover, Calais and Zeebrugge, to stop illegal immigration.

Sensitive geophones are attached to the surface of a vehicle to detect the ballistocardiogram, the small shockwave created by the beating of the human heart. Some newer systems use more accurate microwave detectors.

Frank Boylan, director of Intelligent Security in Bedfordshire, the only British firm to supply the technology, said: "They are generally used at category A high-security prisons or at mental institutions. It is still not used all that widely in the UK."

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said there were already human presence detection systems in some prisons, and the new technology would be an "upgrade to current front-end security".

He added that no prisoners had escaped concealed in vehicles in the recent past.