Built On A Budget Of IDR 203 Billion, This Military Prison Equipped With Suicide Prevention And Artificial Intelligence Sensors

JAKARTA - Correctional institutions or prisons were originally intended to foster people who enter them to become better. Often it's the opposite, with an identical image of a 'hard' life in it, so that not a few prisoners end up there.

However, over time, the current detention facilities continue to be made as humane as possible, starting from the capacity to the facilities inside. Not infrequently, a number of state-of-the-art facilities are embedded, such as this military prison.

Opened last week, the military prison facility is equipped with advanced monitoring systems, including South Korea's first suicide prevention sensor.

The prison is designed to improve the living conditions of inmates, helping to reduce the workload of guards. Worked for two years and costing around 17.7 billion won or equivalent to Rp.203,588,662,464, this prison, located 80 kilometers southeast of Seoul, is to replace an earlier building in a nearby area that was built more than three decades ago.

"This is a product of a long-standing effort to improve the working conditions of correctional personnel, promote healthy re-socialization of inmates based on a strong security system and a comfortable environment," said Lieutenant Colonel Lee Yong-hun, who heads the agency in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, as quoted by Antara. reported the Korea Times June 23.

The new cells have sensors on the ceiling that can track inmates' breathing in real-time, to help prevent suicide. They are programmed to turn on a warning light and send an alarm, if the inmate is breathing abnormally or stops breathing for a certain period of time.

Never before has a penitentiary in Korea, both civilian and military, been equipped with such a state-of-the-art system.

The new prison also has barbed wire fences with artificial intelligence-powered sensors, to distinguish the movements of people from other objects through deep learning algorithms.

Such an efficient monitoring system is essential, especially given the military will face a labor shortage amid Korea's extremely low birth rate, officials said.

To avoid blind spots, as in conventional prisons where cells line up in corridors, the new facility has an open and spacious 'dayroom', where guards can monitor all inmates at a glance.

The institution has individual shower cubicles and more single rooms to give prisoners more privacy.

In addition, the facility plans to offer various vocational training programs for prisoners, helping them acquire skills in 3-D printing, heavy machinery and other fields.

There are around 80 inmates in the prison, including four who were sentenced to death. Korea last carried out executions on December 30, 1997.