City corrections officials have been pleading with state lawmakers for years to enable them to deploy airport-style body scanners to check inmates and visitors for concealed weapons in an effort to minimise violence in prisons.
Governor Andrew Cuomo passed the bill into law in 2018 after jail administrators assured him that they would take precautions to ensure that inmates would not be injured by frequent radiation exposure from of the body scanners.
On Tuesday, however, a board responsible for monitoring jails issued a recommendation for “an emergency investigation into misuse” of six devices that also screen for narcotics and other contraband, noting “risk of radiation exposure” due to the absence of staff training.
With regards to health risks “to employees and people in prison and the possibility for misunderstanding in scans,” the Boards of Correction issued a 56-page report urging immediate corrective action.
Defying The Rules
The body scanners have been in operation since July of last year. According to the report, between July 15 and November 30, 11,212 body scans were performed by the Department of Correction. Forty-five people had either a clean scan with no findings or declined to be scanned.
After that, they were placed in “separation status,” or a solitary holding cell, where they stayed for a median of 30 hours as jail staff waited to collect any narcotics, which was rarely found.
But by doing so, they broke the regulations against isolating inmates with major mental illness or physical issues, as well as the general rules governing solitary confinement in local jails.
The report concluded that “further initiatives are needed to protect” the group that should not be isolated.
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THE CITY reported in August on the Legal Aid Society’s worries regarding isolation status, which it called a “end run around important protections” to curb the use of solitary confinement.
In a letter to the board, Legal Aid argued against allowing the Corrections Department to place in isolation for monitoring people who fail a body scan.
If an inmate is being considered for solitary confinement, they must first undergo a medical evaluation mandated by the Board of Correction to rule out the possibility of a major physical or mental health problem.
According to the study conducted by the board, 39 percent of the people who were placed on separation status following a body scan were “getting continuous mental health therapy.”
In response to the board’s findings, the jail “has taken immediate efforts to guarantee only trained employees are operating scanners,” according to the review conducted by the board.
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The Police Force Will Also Be Required To Go Through The Scanners
City officials announced Monday that some jail personnel would soon be subject to body scanners in an effort to detect any drug smuggling by convicts.
Inmates and outsiders have been subjected to the special scans for some years, but starting later in the month, the governmental Agency of Correction will oblige its employees at one Rikers facility to go through them as well as half of a test study.
DOC Commissioner Louis Molina told The Post that everyone using the facility, “whether they are uniformed or non-uniform workers, health providers, volunteer, and contractual providers,” have to pass through the special scanner. It’s a strategy to reduce the chances of illegal drugs entering the facility.
The release date is slated for February 15 just at Robert N. Davoren Center, he added. Roughly 800 convicts call the RNDC home, with roughly half being adults.
In the outset of 2022, Rational response had become the most violent institution on the island, according to Molina.
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Before expanding the scanner programme to another location, he said, “we wanted to be able to examine it and determine its impact somewhat on personnel traffic that is going into the facility.” We’ll tackle each one separately.
Recently, however, the Municipal Government and advocacy groups have ramped up their efforts after as many as 10 inmates have died from drug overdoses in the prisons over the previous two years and after statistics showed drugs continued to flow into the county jails even while visits were banned even during pandemic.
According to an October report by the City Council, there had only one death overdose in jails in the two years spanning 2017 and 2020. The Department of Corrections has been silent about the scanner pilot programme so far.
The president of the Correctional Captains Association, Patrick Ferraiuolo, has remarked that the organisation is keeping an eye on the issue. We want to make sure that both the personnel and the convicts are safe, so we’re investigating any health problems associated with the machine, he added.
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Conclusion
However, it appeared that the external pressure was having an impact. The New York Police Department (NYPD) set up a search station somewhere at gateway to Rikers Island on January 17 and 18 to conduct random vehicle searches of both officers and employees.
