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Some city correction officers will soon have to pass through body scanners just like inmates to ferret out potential drug smuggling, officials said Monday.
While inmates and visitors have had to walk through the special scanners for several years, the city Department of Correction will require its workers at one Rikers facility to do so as well as part of a pilot project starting later this month, officials said.
“Whether they are uniform or not uniform staff, health providers, volunteers, and contract providers,” DOC Commissioner Louis Molina told The Post of those who will be required to walk through the special scanners. “It’s another pathway we can mitigate against the possibility of contraband narcotics coming into the facilities.”
He said the roll out is tentatively set for Feb. 15 at the Robert N. Davoren Center. The RNDC houses about 800 inmates, about half of whom are young adults.
“In the beginning of 2022, RNDC was the most violent facility on the island,” Molina said.
“We want to be able to evaluate it and see the impact on the personnel traffic that’s coming into the facility, and then we’ll roll out to another facility,” he said of the scanner program. “We’ll do that one at a time.
“Body scanning is one part of a multi-prong strategy to mitigate against contraband narcotics coming into the jails.”
Drugs have been a persistent problem at Rikers’ sprawling jail complex, where 19 inmates died last year, many by overdoses.
The Correction Officers Benevolent Association told The Poston Monday that it is taking a wait-and-see approach to the scanners.
“Safeguarding our members’ health and safety, as well as their employment rights, is our No. 1 priority,” COBA President Benny Boscio said.
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