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Full body scanner coming to Mahoning jail
By Peter H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County commissioners adopted Thursday a resolution of necessity to buy a full-body security scanning system for the county jail.
The airport-style X-ray system is to be acquired for $127,500 from OD Security North America LLC of College Station, Texas, through the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.
“What we really want it for is to keep the drugs out of the jail, but it’s also beneficial for keeping weapons out of the jail,” said Sheriff Jerry Greene.
The system, which can detect metallic and nonmetallic objects, will be installed by mid-June in the jail’s booking area to scan incoming inmates, the sheriff said.
Greene and Maj. Alki Santamas, county jail administrator, had discussed such a purchase with the commissioners during a June 2016 staff meeting that immediately followed two nonfatal county jail inmate overdoses believed to have been caused by fentanyl.
The powerful synthetic opioid was reportedly smuggled into the jail in a body cavity of a third inmate, who was charged with carrying the drug into the lockup.
Jail medical staff swiftly administered Narcan to the inmates who had overdosed.
Full-body scanners are used in the Hamilton, Cuyahoga, Stark and Medina County jails and in federal prisons.
The digital airport-style X-ray machine that was under consideration here last June would have cost $212,000.
In March 2017, Trumbull County commissioners agreed to advertise for bids for purchase of a full-body scanner for that county’s jail for use during inmate booking.
There, Sheriff Paul Monroe said the scanner would pay for itself if it would prevent the county from incurring liability for a single drug overdose death.
In other business Thursday, Mahoning County commissioners authorized a $1,000 sponsorship grant from county hotel bed-tax monies for the 19th annual Youngstown State University Summer Festival of the Arts on July 8 and 9.
Theresa Valek, chief coroner’s investigator, announced the establishment of a scholarship for forensic science majors within the Youngstown State University Foundation in memory of Dr. Joseph Ohr, the county’s forensic pathologist, who died Saturday.
The commissioners’ next meeting will be at 10 a.m. May 5 in the county courthouse basement.