Columbia County Jail scanning inmates’ retinas
GREENPORT — Incarcerated individuals at the Columbia County Jail are having their retinas scanned to check their identities and to verify they are receiving the proper medications.
Their scans are checked against more than 2 million retinal scans on a database owned by BI2, a biometrics company in the process of installing the system in every county jail in the state.
The system was originally developed to track inmates
with COVID-19 and is being paid for with federal COVID money via a state Department of Health grant. BI2 Chief Operating Office John Leonard said the system, which compiles information on cases, tests and isolations, could be used during future pandemics, but agreed that at the moment it’s purpose was mostly for checking the identities of inmates.
The Albany County jail began using retinal scans 11 months ago, Sheriff Craig Apple said. Rensselaer County is currently training jail guards to use the scanners.
At the Columbia County Jail, which has been using the system since July, inmates have their retinas scanned while entering the facility, before receiving medication at the jail, and upon release.
Sheriff Don Krapf said the system made sure the right inmate was receiving the right medications, and that his office was releasing the right person at the end of their incarceration. Under the old system, jail staff scanned inmates’ wristbands before giving out medication, but the retina scan eliminates the possibility of inmates switching wristbands to get at each others’ meds, he said.
Fingerprint scans “force you to go hands-on,” with corrections officers having to roll the inmate’s fingers across a pad, Krapf said, and the retinal system cuts down on contact. Krapf agreed an inmate could just close their eyes to avoid a scan, but he said this was no different than the inmate refusing to comply with being fingerprinted.
The retinal scans are only used at the jail, Krapf said, as opposed to during such things as traffic stops or in arrests
their disapproval at the first of what would become a series of hostile board meetings over the next eight months.
Community members said the event, in which drag queen Scarlet Sagamore planned to read a number of children’s books including a story about a crayon made with the wrong color label, could lead their children to become gay or transgender and ruin their innocence by exposing them to sexuality. Jake Evans, who performs as drag queen Scarlet Sagamore, previously told the Times
Union the event would not be a drag show performance.
The event was postponed and eventually canceled in June but the fallout was just beginning as the tiny library became a local venue in an often-vicious national debate about LGBTQ+ rights with a particular emphasis on trans issues.
Even after the event was canceled, some members of the public allegedly hounded staff while they worked in the library and former director Keir accused the board of failing to protect her or her staff from harassment. The board voted to remove Keir from the July meeting where she raised
those concerns and she resigned in September. Her resignation left the library without the staff to operate and it has been shuttered ever since.
Other resignations soon followed. Members Janet Silburn and Kathleen Mitchell resigned in October and Kathleen Jones left on Nov. 7, leaving the board without the members necessary to conduct official business.
Southern Adirondack Library System Director Sara Dallas said she attended the Nov 21. meeting virtually to present a slideshow on the board application process that culminated in Gardner, Hartley and Mirczak being named to the board.