ALBION, N.Y. — News10NBC Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean is investigating women who get turned away at state prisons because body scanners mistakenly think they’re smuggling in drugs.
Arrived before dawn for prison visit
Isabel Pottinger arrived before dawn at Orleans Correctional Facility in Albion to get in line to visit her fiance. She goes every week. She went through the security body scanner run by a guard.
“She said oh, it’s very florescent. She goes something’s wrong,” Pottinger said.
Pottinger said she was checked by a drug-sniffing dog and passed. But the guards looked at the scan images again and denied her entry. They said they found four masses around her chest.
“I even offered a strip search. I said can you strip search me? And she goes no. You’re just not going to get in,” Pottinger said.
The latest woman turned away
Pottinger, a registered nurse, is just the latest woman turned away after a prison body scan. It’s happening to mothers, girlfriends, daughters and wives.
“Let’s start with embarrassing,” said Mary Kay Hargather of Webster, who was suspended after a scanner mistook a cancer port for contraband.
Sue Fowler in Albion was suspended after a scanner mistook a pelvic mesh for contraband. Fowler’s suspension was lifted after News10NBC’s story.
“The state thinks you’re a drug smuggler,” Brean said.“I know,” Fowler said.
Scanner mistake tampons for drugs
The body scanners are similar to the ones at the Rochester airport. But reports show the ones in prisons mistake tampons, contraceptives and medical devices as drugs.
The Department of Corrections said “body scanner procedures do not discriminate on the basis of gender.” It said they’re an “essential tool” to stop drugs from getting in.
“Are you concerned that their scanner found masses in your body? Are you going to go to the doctor?” Brean asked.
“Yeah, I definitely am,” Pottinger said. “That is concerning that if there really are masses in my body, that is not okay.”
“I said should I go see a doctor for this? And she goes ‘no, it’s just contraband,'” Pottinger said.
Pottinger said she is surprised the police weren’t called on her. She hasn’t been suspended. She and her fiancé are supposed to get married in prison next month. She’s not sure if she’ll be allowed inside.
The chair of the state Senate Crime and Corrections Committee has a bill to change the procedures of the body scanners.
Click here to see the bill
It hasn’t had a vote since March. But the senator’s office said they continue to hear from women who were barred from a prison visit because of a bad body scan.
News10NBC Investigates: Nurse denied prison visit after body scanner finds ‘masses,’ guards interpret as contraband WHEC.com.
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