ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A computer glitch that was causing major problems at the Orange County jail and courthouse was fixed Friday. The glitch affected inmates, their families and court cases all day.
Jail officials told WFTV Friday afternoon that everything was back up to speed, but the computer glitch kept more than 40 inmates in jail a lot longer than they should have been and left some of their family members stranded.
Nina Baban was supposed to be on vacation from Tennessee.
"It's just very frustrating, nobody's helping," Baban said.
Instead, she and her 7-month-old son spent the night waiting outside the Orange County jail. A confrontation with security at Universal Studios got her husband arrested, but a countywide computer glitch kept the jail from processing his release.
"He was ready to come out. They took him back in there because they said the system is out," she said.
The same thing happened to dozens of others. One man, who didn't want to be identified, had to wait an extra 17 hours to get out.
"You violating my rights, I'm being held against my will there. I had been released," he said.
"Shouldn't there have been some sort of a backup plan to get these folks out of the jail?" WFTV reporter Eric Rasmussen asked Allen Moore, with Orange County Department of Corrections..
"Actually, there is a backup plan, which we implemented immediately, but as you know, the release process is very exacting," Moore said.
Jail officials said they couldn't risk letting out the wrong inmate during the computer outage.
"Getting inmates out of the jail wasn't the only problem. For a while, the corrections website was also down, making it impossible to find out who was still locked up," Moore said.
The glitch, described only as a software storage failure, also kept some inmates from making court appearances. But people like Baban said they paid the higher price.
"As soon as he get out, I think we're ready to go back," Nina Baban said.
The jail was still able to book 87 people into the jail Thursday night, but officials said that process only requires one piece of paper, which is less complicated than letting inmates out.
WFTV
