SHAWANO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Deputies in Shawano County have added a new piece of equipment to help keep inmates and their employees safe inside the county jail. It’s a tool that is already making a difference in Northeast Wisconsin.
The new body scanner recently installed at the Shawano County jail is meant to stop inmates from smuggling everything from illegal drugs to weapons inside. Shawano County is just the latest agency in Northeast Wisconsin to install this type of device.
“I think it’s a common theme within multiple jails throughout the state. People know that when they’re coming to jail they may be here for a while. They’re going to try and get contraband, illegal substances, controlled substances into the jail,” says Lt. Chris Madle with the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office.
Similar to scanners used at security checkpoints in airports, the body scanner can detect foreign objects on or in the body.
According to Capt. Kirt Schmidt with the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office, “A couple of years ago, we actually had a gal – she actually attempted to smuggle a lot of things in. She had two glass pipes. She had a bag of drugs. She had some bags of bullets. And she also has just a small Derringer revolver.”
That inmate was taken to the hospital where the items were safely removed.
But, it’s the discovery of such contraband that is meant to prevent overdoses or injuries from happening on the inside. Madle says, “Our number one priority in our jail is to keep our inmates safe and this is a tool that we can use to keep them safe and also our staff.”
While the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office used a little more than $200,000 in American Recovery Plan funds to buy the device, Winnebago County has had a similar machine in its jail for about seven years.
“It’s proved to be a useful tool for the agency,” say Lt. Amber Rozek. “And also we will use it to do scans of people that don’t leave the secure portion but to make sure things aren’t coming out of the kitchen when we have the inmate workers going out or if we have grounds crew, them coming back in to the building and when our Huber inmates go in and out they’re also scanned upon return.”
Officials with both Outagamie and Winnebago County say the frequency of contraband being found on or in an inmate during a scan has decreased since the machines were installed. Shawano County has yet to discover anything, using its scanner, something jail officials attribute to word getting around town about its installation.
Lt. Madle adds, “I really think this has become a bigger deterrent device for us rather than us having to take action of seeing things in than when they come in here.”
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