It is estimated that the Nation's prisons released more than 600,000 inmates in 2001, a significant increase from the 400,000 released in 1996. It is expected that by 2005, the ratio of admissions to releases will be 1:1 with the release rate topping 1.2 million by 2010. An unfortunate result of these releases is that most of the former inmates will not remain crime free. To help law enforcement officers, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) initiated the Fugitive Apprehension Program or Fuginet, a database that can identify and track parole violators. Fuginet actually began in 1995 to share information about parole violators. Today, Fuginet provides everything from current photos to the addresses of a parolee's friends and relatives. Records are initiated at the prison level when the parolee is released. The information is updated daily by parole officers, as well as participating agencies. State and local law enforcement officers have access to Fuginet via the Internet. As of this report, the Fuginet database contains information on more than 80,000 TDCJ parolees, with all State parole officers (1,500) trained on Fuginet. Because the data or information is up-to-date and accurate, the program is successful.
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