BUNNELL, Fla. – The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office introduced what it called game-changing technology that will help deputies positively identify new inmates and keep the public safe.
The newer technology is called the Inmate Recognition and Identification System (I.R.I.S.). It scans the iris of the eyes to help positively identify new inmates before they are admitted into the jail and before they are allowed to leave the jail.
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The scanner technology helps to match the person’s identity.
News4JAX checked out the technology to see how it works and learn why the sheriff’s office called it a game changer.
Louis Miceli is the commander of the Flagler County Detention Center. He said although fingerprinting is the most common way of identifying people who have been previously arrested, scanning the iris is more accurate.
“Very few people do eye alterations, and you can’t alter your iris. Therefore, that makes this the future of being able to positively identify people,” Miceli said.
New inmates entering the jail will be required to undergo an iris scan. Their iris and the name associated with the iris will then go into a national database, so anytime they are arrested again, even in a different jurisdiction jailers at that facility using the same technology will be able to identify them.
Flagler County jailers will also be able to positively identify a new inmate if that inmate’s iris and name are already in the national database.
This is important because we want to know if you have used any other aliases in previous arrests,” Miceli said.
Once an inmate’s iris is in the database, they will never be able to pretend to be someone else if they’re arrested again.
Miceli said this comes in handy when inmates come in as a John Doe and deputies are forced to spend hours, if not days, trying to identify them. He said it’s also beneficial when people who are in the country illegally are arrested, deported, and then arrested again in another jurisdiction that is also using IRIS technology.
“The odds of having two identical irises are almost virtually impossible. It’s one in 10 to the 78th power. There are no two. If you did the math, it’s virtually impossible,” he said.
Just as iris scanning technology is used to process inmates into the jail, it will also be used before an inmate is discharged.
“If it’s an inmate the deputy is not familiar with and did not personally book the inmate in, and if he comes down with an ID card that belongs to someone else, we’re going to be releasing the wrong person,” Miceli said. “That will create problems because that person might have not been eligible for release. He or she might not be done with his or her court case. He or she might be getting ready to be sent to prison. we don’t want to re-introduce that person back into the community without justice being served one way or the other.”