CAMBRIDGE — The staff of the Henry County Sheriff’s department learned the hard way how important the computer in their office was.
Called the Programmable Logic Controller, or PLC, the computer controlled a number of functions in the jail, the sheriff’s office and the courthouse.
It controlled the system where a dispatcher could push a button from their office and open the door of any cell in the jail.
It controlled the numeric keypads the department’s investigators used to get into their offices.
It controlled all the closed-circuit TV cameras around the jail and the courthouse.
It controlled the intercoms in the jail and at the courthouse doors.
It even controlled the plumbing.
And one day, the PLC — which had been installed when the jail complex was remodeled in 1998 — stopped working. All the functions it controlled also stopped.
The only way to open a cell door was for a staffer to take a key to the cell and open it by hand.
There were no security camera images, no keypads working at office doors, no intercoms.
Inmates couldn’t even flush the toilets in their cells.
Fortunately, sheriff’s department officials located a county in Iowa that had the same system and luckily, that county had recently upgraded the central computer and was willing to part with the old one.
That computer still worked, and the Henry County department got it and installed it in place of the failed computer.
All the computer-controlled systems are working again, but Sheriff Kerry Loncka said it’s only a matter of time before the second-hand computer fails.
So the sheriff’s department is saving money from the public safety tax to buy a new computer.
That will require a big investment. Loncka estimated that the new equipment will cost $600,000 to $800,000.
Before the public safety tax was implemented, it would have been very difficult for the county government to come up with that kind of money.
But now, the new tax will pay for a new computer — and for some peace of mind for the people in the sheriff’s department.
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January 14, 2020 at 02:06PM
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