Inmate body scanner to be installed at Western Regional Jail

BARBOURSVILLE, W.Va. — Cabell County’s Western Regional Jail will soon be the first in West Virginia where those being booked will have to pass through a body scanner, according to the secretary of the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.

Secretary Jeff Sandy said the inmate body scanner, being paid for with more than $100,000 in grant funding, is needed to eliminate persistent drug smuggling.

DMAPS Secretary Jeff Sandy

“We’ve had situations at the Western Regional Jail where they will take the drugs and wrap them up in black plastic tape and insert them into their anal cavity,” Sandy explained.

Installation of the body scanner there will be scheduled in the near future with plans already in the works to roll out such scanners to all ten regional jails.

“A law enforcement officer, when they arrest an individual, they do not have the authority, nor would they want to, to search their body cavity for a controlled substance,” Sandy said.

If drugs are detected during scanning, “We’ll be able to then get a warrant, take them to the hospital, keep those drugs out.”

Earlier this year, investigators said a man intentionally violated conditions of bond so that he would be taken back to the Western Regional Jail with a cache of drugs.

The Western Regional Jail serves the following counties: Cabell, Lincoln, Mason, Putnam and Wayne. First opened in 2003 off Interstate 64, its considered one of the largest jails in West Virginia.

After the Western Regional Jail, additional body scanners will be purchased for the Mountain State’s other regional jails using funding from prescription drug settlements.

Once the body scanners are in place statewide, “You will not be able to smuggle drugs into our facility in your body cavity,” Sandy said.

Sandy talked about the regional jail body scanner additions on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”





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