Body scanner called priority at 1 Arkansas jail

BENTONVILLE -- A body scanner for the Benton County jail has been on the lockup's wish list for three years now, and officials hope that this year funding for it will be approved.

Jail Capt. Jeremy Guyll made his third appearance recently before the Quorum Court's Budget Committee to ask for the $175,000 scanner.

A new technology could be used to detect razors, needles, drugs and other contraband being smuggled into the lockup, officials say. It could detect items that have been swallowed or inserted into body cavities.

Benton County Justice of the Peace Susan Anglin supports buying the equipment. The jail, which held 630 prisoners Friday, already should have such a scanner, she said.

"The first time they presented it, it sounded like a reasonable request," Anglin said, adding that she appreciates Guyll's determination.

"He's not given up on it. He keeps presenting it," she said. "Others come before us and you see them one time and they don't come back."

A scanner is needed because having jailers just visually scan people and perform over-the-clothes pat-downs isn't enough to keep weapons and other contraband from getting into the lockup, Guyll said.

"People are human," he said. "A weapon could be missed. When people come to jail, they are desperate. They will swallow [drugs] or put them in an orifice in their body."

The safety of jailers and the lockup's prisoners is his biggest concern, Guyll said.

"If someone passes away in our custody, you might as well get your checkbook out," he said. "We want to be proactive with this. We don't want to pursue this after someone dies and we could have prevented it."

The jail wants to buy a Canon RadPRO SecurPASS full-body scanner. Guyll recently saw a demonstration of one at the Douglas County jail in Lawrence, Kan.

The demonstration used a prisoner's 4- to 5-inch-thick mattress. A piece of candy was crushed into a fine powder, wrapped in a clear piece of plastic and inserted into a hole that had been cut in the mattress. Then the mattress was scanned, and the wrapped candy showed up on the scanner, Guyll said.

Justice of the Peace Brent Meyers isn't on the Budget Committee but said he would support having a body scanner at the jail.

"There are things that are high on the priority list. Public safety is one of them," he said.

OTHER JAILS

In August 2017, the jail in Oregon's Washington County became the first county lockup in that state to install a body scanner, said Jeff Talbot, public information officer for the sheriff's office.

The scanner cost $160,000.

He said the safety and care of prisoners and jailers was the main reason for getting it.

That jail's average daily population is 572 inmates. People going to the jail are now well aware that there's a body scanner.

"We've seen an uptick of discarded narcotics in the booking area," he said.

Privacy and safety concerns related to the scanner have been raised and addressed, Talbot said. An X-ray image is taken. It doesn't show intimate body parts. It would take 400 scans to equal the radiation in one chest X-ray at a hospital, he said.

In Dayton, Ohio, the Montgomery County jail started using a body scanner in January, jail administrator Maj. Matt Haines said. The scanner cost about $125,000.

The jail has an average daily population of 817 and processes more than 25,000 prisoners a year, he said.

"There is a reduced amount of contraband getting in through intake," Haines said.

Many prisoners entering the lockup now simply ditch or surrender any drugs they have when the arrive, he said.

"Word of mouth spreads quickly when you are in jail and when you get out," he said.

The body scanner "100 percent" eliminates metal objects from getting into the jail, Haines said. Finding very small amounts of drugs and tobacco is a taller order, he said.

Inmates get pat-downs and then go through the body scanner.

Haines called the scanner "a medical-grade piece of equipment" and acknowledged that his staff is still learning how to use it. He said he tries to have the same employees run the scanner so they can become more familiar with the different types of contraband.

LEARNING CURVE

The Pima County sheriff's office in Tucson, Ariz., bought two scanners in January, said the department's Capt. Darin Stephens. The cost was $112,000 each. One is used at the jail intake area, and the other is in a work release area. The jail averages about 1,800 inmates.

Stephens said each scan takes about 7 seconds. An inmate stands on a metal plate attached to a swivel that moves the platform from side to side, producing an X-ray.

"It's not the Holy Grail for finding internalized drugs or weapons, but it is a tool," he said, adding that officers' vigilance is still key in finding contraband.

The machine does detect all metal objects, but Stephens said its effectiveness "all revolves around who is using the machine. It's only as good as the operator."

Stephens said data are being compiled on what contraband the scanners have detected.

He said, however, that the machines are having an impact because the jail has seen an increase in drugs being sent through the mail. In fact, the jail is instituting a ban on all greeting cards because many of them consist of two or three folds of paper that can be used to conceal drugs and the folds sealed back, Stephens said.

Benton County's Budget Committee will meet again tonight. Sheriff Shawn Holloway already has trimmed his funding requests. He has dropped a request for a pickup and scaled back a proposed misdemeanor work program from four deputies to one. He has cut the equipment request from four vans and trailers to one van and trailer.

Guyll hopes the jail body scanner will get approved this year. If not, he knows what he will do.

"I'll be back in six months for midyear requests and back a year later. That's how important this is to me," he said.

Metro on 11/05/2018