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Sheriff's computers have problems with 2000 rollover By Stacey Roberts, Guard Assistant Managing Editor

The Independence County Sheriff's Department experienced some computer problems with the rollover of 1999 into the year 2000, according to printouts from systems that report occupants incarcerated in the county jail. According to the daily register of persons arrested furnished to the Guard each weekday by the sheriff's department, the computer system which tracks each prisoner at the county jail had difficulty in processing the age of each prisoner; and the names of prisoners, normally printed in the daily reports, did not print out on the report for Jan. 1-3. The reports did print the city of each prisoner's residence, the sex and race of each prisoner, and the charges against each prisoner. These statistics are normally reported on a daily basis. However, the ages of each prisoner were not reported accurately. According to the report, a prisoner's age was listed as being the same as the last two digits of the year the prisoner was born. For example, if a prisoner was listed as being born in the year 1979, the prisoner's age was listed as 79. One inmate on the report was listed with a birth date in July of 1980 and reported as 80 years of age. The report lists the birth dates of each inmate and the age of each inmate in separate columns. It also lists the date the inmate was booked into the county jail in another column. The date in that column for each inmate on the report was listed as 01/01/00, or 01/02/00, depending on if the inmate was booked on Saturday, Jan. 1, or Sunday, Jan. 2. Prisoners were listed by numerals instead of the full name, as is normal on the jail reports. On the report cited, nine people were booked into the jail during the two days. The sheriff's department also provides a report listing each inmate released by the jail during the same time period. Inmates booked into the jail on the above cited report and booked out on bond in the release report were still listed by a single digit instead of name and were reported as being the same age as the year of their birth. One inmate who was booked into the jail prior to the change to the year 2000 was listed according to name and actual age. The errors on the new year's reports were corrected by Monday. The reports released by the sheriff's department on Jan. 4 had all the inmates arrested on Jan. 3-4 listed according to name and their actual ages. Gary Baker, computer consultant for the sheriff's department, said the glitch was not a Y2K problem, but a problem with age calculation within the software. The software, obtained from the Pine Bluff Police Department, cannot calculate age over the change from one century to another, Baker explained. "I've had that problem in several places," Baker said by telephone Thursday afternoon. "It showed up any place where there is a birth year entered. It cannot calculate what century the person was born in." Baker explained that the software had the same problem calculating the age of someone born during the 1800s if they were arrested in the 1900s. "There just weren't that many people born in the 1800s that we saw arrested," he said. Because the software calculated the ages based within the same century as the arrest, the ages of the inmates were listed in negative numbers. And because someone with a negative age would be under the age of 17 years, the inmate's name would not be printed on the report because the software would determine that the inmate was a minor. Minors' names are not printed on the reports given to media or the public according to juvenile shield laws in Arkansas. Baker said the sheriff's department computer software problem is not the only one he has been working on this week. He had to fix one posting problem with the renewal-payment program in the Guard office, he said. He noted that the problems he's been fixing during the past few days are not Y2K problems, but very elementary problems that would have shown up in computer systems during the change of any year. "I'm a lot less busy than I anticipated," Baker said. "I guess that's great for my sanity."

-- Lisa (lisadawn@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

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-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@AOL.COM), January 10, 2000.

Would you Please get a grip?.. It's not Y2k.. it's crap, or else it SUCKS... sheesh.. I thought you guys knew better :-)

-- Netghost (ng@no.yr), January 10, 2000.

"Gary Baker, computer consultant for the sheriff's department, said the glitch was not a Y2K problem, but a problem with age calculation within the software."

Everybody wants to be a comedian.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 10, 2000.

Thanks Lisa,
Baker's comments gave me a good laugh.

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), January 10, 2000.

Netghost;

You're right!!! it's CRAP!!

Computer Related Aftermath Problems!!

(See original FRED thread) (big grin)

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.