Mahoning jail's airport-style body scanner improves contraband detection

YOUNGSTOWN

A new body scanner will help prevent inmates from smuggling drugs and weapons into the Mahoning County jail, officials said.

Deputy sheriffs received training over the past two days in the use of a new airport-style X-ray scanner that will help deputies find contraband on inmates before the jail accepts them.

The scanner already is in use.

“I don’t have to tell you how creative people will get to get things in the jail,” Sheriff Jerry Greene said.

Because many inmates are in the jail on pretrial detention, there are limitations on the searches the deputies can conduct, the sheriff said. The scanner is a legal way to make sure people aren’t concealing contraband.

The Ohio Department of Corrections uses the technology in its facilities, and it’s become more common in county jails over the past couple of years.

Read more about the new equipment in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.