Romania Equips its Prisons with Body-Worn Camera Technology from Motorola Solutions

The Romanian National Administration of Penitentiaries has signed a contract with Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) to deploy 2100 body-worn cameras to enhance safety and security in all prisons across the country. The new cameras will be used by prison staff during guarding activities and prisoner transport to help deter and deescalate confrontations and collect video footage in the event of conflicts or emergencies.

“Body-worn cameras are proven to discourage unruly behavior, and we expect our prisoners and staff to act appropriately with one another,” said Cristian Spataru, penitentiary police commissioner and detention security specialist officer. “In conflict situations, the cameras will provide valuable evidence so that we can better understand what occurred, resolve cases more quickly and keep our prisons as safe as possible.”

Motorola Solutions’ next-generation VB400 body-worn cameras are designed to never miss a moment, with an automated pre-recording feature that ensures incidents are captured from the start. After the end of a shift, officers place their cameras into docks to automatically upload and store footage of the day’s events to the VideoManager evidence management solution. The solution provides a highly secure method of protecting video evidence and works seamlessly with officers’ existing daily workflows.

For the Romanian National Administration of Penitentiaries, an agency under the Ministry of Justice, the requirements for the body-worn cameras included high resolution footage, ease of use, lightweight and rugged design, wide-angle field of view, recording storage, a battery life of up to 12 hours and the pre-recording functionality. The ability to live stream video via Wi-Fi to the control room to enhance situational awareness was also required.

“The body-worn camera roll out in Romania is the latest in a series of deployments with public safety organizations across Europe, including projects with Border Police in Romania and National Police and Gendarmerie in France,” said Michael Kaae, corporate vice president for Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa at Motorola Solutions. “We are seeing increasing demand for video security technology from public safety agencies to help frontline teams maintain safety and integrity in their day-to-day interactions.”