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Trumbull sheriff suggests purchase of full-body scanner for jail to combat drug problem
Commissioners agree to advertise for bids for $115K piece of equipment
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
There’s a serious drug problem in Trumbull County, but Sheriff Paul Monroe wants the problem to stay out of the county jail.
One solution is to purchase a full-body scanner and use it during the booking of prisoners.
Such scanners work a little like ones used at airports to detect weapons that someone might try to bring onto an airplane or X-ray machines used at hospitals.
But the one used at the jail in Stark County uses a dose of radiation 400 times lower than a medical chest X-ray, the Stark County sheriff told The Canton Repository last year.
Monroe said such scanners, which cost between $115,000 and $250,000, can detect metal things like you would expect, but they also can find drugs and other contraband that are not metal, even when it’s in the inmate’s digestive system or elsewhere.
One of the dangers is that inmates will smuggle drugs into the facility in a plastic bag that could leak. Such a leak could kill someone. When drugs make it into the jail, it means others might also die.
An inmate who consumes drugs in the jail who’s been clean several months might overdose and die because their tolerance for the drug has diminished, Monroe said.
In January, Trumbull County corrections officers were advised that four inmates in the same pod were “shooting heroin,” according to a report. During a search, officers found a bag in an inmate’s sock containing nine pills and a powdery substance.
Inmate Jacari White, 24, of Warren, was later charged with illegal conveyance into a correctional facility, a felony.
On Wednesday, the county commissioners agreed to advertise for bids for a scanner.
Monroe said at least some of the money will come from his department’s budget, but he’s convinced the purchase will save the county in legal expenses.
“When you look at the liability on overdose deaths, the expense would be huge,” he said. “That would pay for itself in one liability case.”
Commissioners also on Wednesday approved a resolution that allows the sheriff to begin charging an inmate reception fee of $40. It will be charged to inmates who are not deemed indigent but are booked into the jail because they have been convicted of an offense.
The commissioners have also authorized a fee of $5 to $10 to nonindigent inmates every time he or she uses medical care from a doctor, eye doctor or nurse in the jail.
Doctor and dentist visits will cost the inmate $10, and nurse visits will cost $5.
Both measures are already being used in Mahoning and Franklin counties.
A final item approved by the commissioners Wednesday was to hire Christa A. Bennett as intel analyst with the sheriff’s office. Bennett served in that job up until six months ago, Monroe said.
In addition to analyzing crime patterns, Bennett will also analyze drug overdoes and overdose deaths, Monroe said. The money to pay for the position comes entirely from a grant.