Body scanner to help deter drug smuggling

The greatest scourge facing jails today is drug smuggling, Lake County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Frank Leonbruno said.

In December 2015, two Lake County Jail inmates died in a 12-hour period from drug overdoses from heroin smuggled into the jail. This March, another inmate died from a heroin overdose. Leonbruno believes that inmate smuggled heroin into the jail by hiding it in his body cavity.

“Although contraband has been a problem in jails for many years, the issue has become increasingly problematic given the heroin epidemic that is plaguing jails across our country and intensified in Ohio,” Leonbruno wrote in a letter to the Lake County commissioners. The body scanners become a “large deterrent” for people bringing drugs into the facility and helps prevent people from overdosing “as best as possible,” Leonbruno said.

Inmates use their body cavities to bring in contraband because they know officers cannot search their body cavities without

probable cause and a judicial order because of their Fourth Amendment rights concerning search and seizure, he said.

Following the two December 2015 overdose deaths, the Sheriff’s Office requested a body scanner for the jail. In that incident, a third person overdosed but did not die.

Leonbruno said for the past year they’ve worked with state Rep. John Rogers, D-Mentor-on-theLake, in an effort to secure state and federal grant funds for a scanner, but have been unsuccessful.

The office asked the commissioners again following the most recent death in March. This time, the commissioners approved the request to purchase a Soter RS body scanner.

The scanner is from Texas-based OD Security America and costs $118,750. Leonbruno said the cost includes shipping, installation, calibration, operator training and a five-year full manufacturer’s warranty.

OD Security America “specializes in human Xray systems,” according to its website. The company claims any hidden object can be found “within 10 seconds, regardless of what material it is made.”

The body scanners become a “large deterrent” for people bringing drugs into the facility and helps prevent people from overdosing

“as best as possible,” Leonbruno said.

Leonbruno said the scanner is currently being used by jails in Wood, Champaign, Madison and Union counties. Mahoning, Shelby, Greene, Clermont , Washington, Monroe and Coshocton counties are in the process of purchasing the same scanner.

“In today’s correction climate, the cost of litigation concerning overdose deaths in jail facilities is far too great not to install body scanners to detect contraband coming into the facilities,” Leonbruno said in his letter to the commissioners.

In April, Fayette County had seven overdose deaths in one day in its jail, Leonbruno said.

“As such overdoses and deaths related to drugs expand in detention facilities, litigation attorneys are increasingly arguing that the availability of body scanners as a means of detection is a form of deliberate indifference by those facilities that choose not to install body scanner in their jail facilities,” he said.

Leonbruno said in a phone interview June 14 the body scanner is expected to arrive within 45 days and will be fully operational shortly thereafter.

From medical to legal to human costs, Leonbruno said he thinks the body scanner will ultimately save the county money.