Corrections Community

I am the Operations Manager and will soon be developing policies around our new DVR /CCTV system.  My question is what are the pros and cons of archiving?  Or do you just let the DVR rewrite?  If you do archive DVR footage how long do you save it 6 months, 1 year???

Theron,

We archive only incidents and they are kept online for a quarter.  After that an Administrative Assistant transfers those files to cd and we keep them indefinetly.

Our DVR has a 30 day capacity then begins to write over the oldest images.  We only save certain incidents like fights, suicide attempts etc.  We save these indefinitly.

Because of state law that allows inmates to take legal action with in 3 and 1/2 years, we archive this long. This is done with over 500 cameras, 38 - 16 channel DVR's, in 8 buildings. This is all done on hard drives that attach via USB to the DVR. Some drives will be swapped after 25 days with others looking at stairwell and minimal movement areas might last 3 mos or more. Regardless on the type of DVR's you have you want the best quality to be recorded. If you are going to need this media because of a fight, or problem you want to be sure you have the best media available to view. With using the highest frame rate you lose storage area also. With hard drives down in cost storage is not much of an issue as it once was with cost. You might want to check with your attorneys, as hard as this is to do, come up with a number 60 days, 6 months what ever and stick with that. Once you have media that has reached that point, remove it from your active media pool as this could be used for legal action if you still have it. It’s nice to appear in court and show that said after 6 months we do xyz or what ever terms you come up with for your archiving. We have racks of hard drives that are rewritten to after the archive time has expired. Sgt. Donald Smith Tech Services Supervisor

My DVR's re-write over themselves after 3 weeks or so. I am looking at more storage, but even though the prices are down, we can't afford it right now. We do download and save to server or CD/DVD if needed (fights, etc.) and store in the inmate's or Staff's files.