At least several times a month, an inmate coming into the Johnson County jail has hidden drugs or swallowed them, requiring a search and sometimes a trip to the hospital.
Keeping drugs and other items, such as weapons, out of the jail is top priority, but finding them can sometimes be difficult.
While correctional officers will routinely find items during processing that inmates have hidden, it’s the items they don’t find that are a huge concern, because those are the ones getting into the jail, said Johnson County Sheriff’s Office Maj. Duane Burgess, the jail commander.
“It’s not what we have found, it’s what we haven’t found,” he said.
For more than a year, county officials have discussed the need for a body scanner. The machine would create an image similar to an X-ray and show any items — weapons, drugs, needles — that someone has hidden.
By this summer, the county will be using one at the jail. A second one eventually could be used at the Johnson County Community Corrections facility for offenders on work release coming back after leaving to go to work. The county is spending about $236,000 on the two devices, which is coming from the county’s savings, money the jail receives from inmates buying personal items from the commissary and money the sheriff’s office receives when drugs, cash or other items are seized as part of a criminal investigation.
Now, the jail is preparing for the equipment to be installed, and correctional officers are being trained on how to use it. That training will be key in making sure any drugs or other items are being found before inmates are processed into the jail, Commissioner Kevin Walls said.
The scanner takes about eight seconds to do a full body scan, and then correctional officers can zoom in on areas on the screen to look for anything that may be hidden, he said. The technology was developed in South Africa for mining, Walls said.
The image basically divides the body in two, and if an area looks misshapen or strangely sized, then correctional officers can zoom into that area to see if anything is hidden, Walls said.
Making sure correctional officers know how to read the images is key, which is why they will need lengthy training, Burgess said.
Currently, correctional officers do strip searches of incoming inmates, which requires two workers in order to make sure no one is alone with any inmates while they are being searched. Being able to use the scanner will save a significant amount of time, Burgess said.
Ideally, the scanner will also discourage people from trying to bring in any items, which is safer for the inmates, he said.
In several instances, inmates have had to be taken to the hospital to have an item removed or when they ingest drugs to sneak into the jail. When that happens, the sheriff’s office often has to get a court order to induce vomiting, and while waiting, the inmate could be at risk of overdosing as the level of the drug rises in their system, Burgess said.
Walls wants to get the word out that the county is getting a scanner, so inmates won’t even try to bring items into the jail anymore, he said. Hancock County has a scanner, and correctional officers have found items more than 60 times. But the number of times someone decides to tell the officer arresting them what they have on them or chooses to give up any drugs or weapons they have is significantly higher, Walls said.
The county should be getting the scanners in the next 60 days. The second scanner likely will be installed at the sheriff’s office training center, since the community corrections building doesn’t have the space. But the program still could use the scanner, and correctional officers also could do added training on how to use the device, Walls said.
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The county is purchasing two body scanners that can be used to search inmates and offenders coming into law enforcement facilities.
Cost: $118,000 each
What: The scanners use technology developed in South Africa for mining. They create an X-ray-like image in about eight seconds, which basically divides the body in two. If an area of the body looks misshapen or strangely sized, you can zoom in to see if anything is there that shouldn’t be.
Who will use it: One scanner is going in at the Johnson County jail. A second scanner will likely go to the sheriff’s office training center, but can be used by Johnson County Community Corrections for offenders returning to the facility from work or appointments.
When: The devices are expected to be installed in the next 60 days.
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