This headlining issue is a specification change and it is an administrative rather than an engineering failure to knowingly rely on outdated software. The article also refers to other software problems but in scenarios like this the people who write the code (as well as the people who operate it, such as corrections department IT staff) tend to have no decision making power whatsoever:

>“It was Thanksgiving weekend,” one source recalled. “We were killing ourselves working on it, but every person associated with the software rollout begged (Deputy Director) Profiri not to go live.”