When someone is booked into the Texas County Jail, there will now be more than one photograph taken of them.
In addition to the standard “mug shot,” jailers checking them in will also take a picture of their eyes.
The new procedure is part of a new iris identification system now being employed at the jail. The “dual-iris enrollment equipment” (developed by L-1 Identity Solutions Biometrics Division in Bloomington, Mn., and distributed by Sure Scan Technology in Jefferson City), is designed to increase accuracy and speed up everything regarding inmate identification, including data base sharing among law enforcement agencies nationwide. Jailers will also use the scanner when checking out inmates, further insuring that the right person is standing before them.
“What it does is take a photograph of your eyeball,” Texas County Sheriff Carl Watson said. “And apparently there are more identifying characteristics in your eye than in your fingerprints.”
Training for Texas County Jail personnel was conducted Monday and Tuesday by Steve Ruch, a manufacturer’s representative with At large Sales, Inc. in Nixa.
“It really helps you make sure that the people you’re booking in are who they say they are,” Ruch said. “It also helps insure that the people being released are the ones who are supposed to be released; they can’t change wrist bands or something like that. The eyes don’t lie, so you know the person leaving is the one who’s supposed to be leaving.”
The new system works through existing Live Scan fingerprint identification equipment and interfaces with a mug shot camera to quickly provide a facial image and enter it into the database. It also can be utilized to keep track of inmate movement within a given jail facility, such as tracking prisoners coming and going in work release programs.
“It’s really a two-fold system they’re getting here,” Ruch said, “You get face and iris information.”
As with the Live Scan gear, the iris ID equipment was obtained through a grant from the Missouri Sheriff’s Association.
“This will not cost the county any money,” Watson said. “When these kinds of things become available, you either do it or forget about it – you don’t get a second chance. And if we can do something that will speed things up and increase accuracy, I’m all for it.”
A few years ago, computerized fingerprint machinery replaced the old ink-and-roll method. The technology allowed law enforcement agencies across the country to have quicker access to each other’s identification data bases.
“Using it, we identified a guy who had a murder warrant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was giving a fictitious name,” Watson said. “It took about two hours to get that through. But with the iris scan machine, they say the average time is about nine seconds.”
The improved accuracy and faster turn-around time of the iris ID equipment basically makes it harder for criminals to squeeze through cracks in the system. If their “eye prints” have been entered anywhere in the system, they’ll be immediately identified when a photo of them is taken again somewhere else.
While the equipment is new to Texas County, it has been in place at other agencies for quite some time, so there’s already plenty of information available to be tapped into.
“The Missouri Department of Corrections has been putting information into this system for about five years,” Watson said.
Texas County is one of only a few in Missouri to have the equipment.
“We’re in the first round of getting the machine installed,” Watson said. “We have the new facility, so they didn’t have to do much preparation to get it ready.”