The 9th Annual Corrections Technology Association (CTA) Conference was held May 4 - 7 at the Antlers Hilton in Colorado Springs, CO. It was a well planned and executed event which was home to great networking opportunities with government and vendors alike.

The Corrections Technology Association also hosted a Cinco de Mayo 'fiesta' at the 'Garden of the Gods' which provided additional opportunities to network and an unbeatable view of all the Colorado Springs sites.

The presentations included topics covering technology, operations, and management of corrections facilities and ranged from Electronic Health Records to Consolidating and Outsourcing and the Impacts on IT. One of the notable presentations covered Entrance Monitoring and Identity Management. Arkansas Department of Corrections representatives discussed how effective the utilization of the Biometric Access Corporation SecureTouch Advanced Modular (STAm) device has been in providing real-time identity verification for visitors entering and exiting an institution. Not only has this device increased the reliability of identification, it has also significantly decreased the time it takes to process visitors. This is likely a technology that other corrections agencies will look to utilize in the future.

One of the common themes often discussed during the conference's presentations was budget shortfalls. It was made apparent that the corrections agencies will combat the budgetary issues by utilizing information technology in order to make their operations more efficient and streamlined and the above mentioned (STAm) device is a perfect example of that. INPUT is currently working to utilize the contacts made at the conference to obtain additional information on the upcoming initiatives.

The 10th Annual CTA Conference will be held May 3 – 6, 2009 in Albany, NY. If you were unable to make it this year, be sure not to miss out on such a great industry event!