ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – More than 120 people were booked Tuesday into the Orange County Jail, all of them, except for women who are pregnant, passed through an X-ray scanning machine known as SecurPass.
The scanner, emitting low-dosage radiation, sees through clothing and even inside body cavities.
"Because if someone has something hidden inside an orifice, that's why we have the enhancement of the SecurPass," said Capt. Michael Martin, correctional captain for support operations at the Orange County Jail.
Martin showed News 6 anchor Erik von Ancken scans that have caught a handcuff key in a pocket, a pocketknife in a bra, and more than 90 bags of heroin from a vaginal cavity.
"Stuff like drugs, heroin, marijuana, a knife, weapons, lighters, cellphones," Martin said.
[Pictures: Contraband found before entering the Orange County Jail]
The Orange County Jail also strip-searches inmates accused of serious crimes but even a search cannot detect contraband stored inside a body.
Martin said the consequences of contraband making it into the fifth-largest jail in Florida could be dangerous and deadly.
"It's a big safety concern for staff and all of the inmates," Martin said. "Of course if a weapon gets in, someone could get hurt or killed."
While News 6 cameras were inside the booking center, Martin scanned an inmate and noticed a shiny, round object that showed up on a scan and decided to investigate further.
"This individual had something that looked like it was in his pocket," Martin said, pointing to a computer screen displaying the X-ray. "When we checked the individual, it was a coin."
The scanner shows X-ray results in great detail, right down to the rivets on a person's pants or gas inside a person's abdomen.
Orange County booked 38,078 inmates in 2016.
Martin said since SecurPass was installed last year, contraband coming into the jail was down 20 percent.
"If you're caught then you're gonna catch additional charges," Martin said.
He said the radiation from the scanner is harmless.
"An inmate would have to stand in front of the scanner 400 times to get the amount of radiation equivalent to a single hospital chest X-ray," the jail wrote in its internal newsletter.
The machine also scans equipment brought into the jail, such as wheelchairs, canes, even prostheses.
The SecurPass scanner installed at the Orange County Jail cost $175,000. The jail purchased a second scanner to check all inmates on work release who re-enter the jail after a day of work.