Jail administrators say inmate deaths, riots and uprisings have been a problem at the Dona Ana county detention center. They are now hoping to clean-up the bad reputation when it comes to keeping inmates in line.

Detention officers are undergoing intense training to learn how to handle inmate uprisings and riots with new specialized technology and weapons.

It's highly confidential because it's very accurate. We don't want the inmates to know what we're using," said team leader Joseph Garcia with the U.S. Corrections-Special Operations Group, based out of Virginia. The U.S. C-SOG provides training to special enforcement teams across the country in jail and prison systems.

Officers in the Dona Ana county detention center are learning to use specialized high-tech weapons, designed for a prison environment.

It is the number one program in the United States that is literally the industry standard now," said Garcia. The objective he says is to quickly diffuse and control an inmate uprising before it escalates.

Its no secret that the detention center has had a history of uprisings with inmates. They hope now that with this new training and technology they're able to quash some of those problems that they've had in the past.

If we can keep it and contain that incident within the first 3 or 4 minutes, we can minimize the disruption to the facility and potential danger to inmates and officers," said Chris Barela, the new jail administrator, who took over the facility in January. He says better training has been a top priority.