Pinal County Sheriff’s Office To Use Iris Scanning
When you’re booked into the Pinal County Jail, you won’t be only be providing fingerprints; you’ll now be subject to an iris scan. The county is the first in Arizona to implement the high tech iris-recognition technology and hopes it will help them track offenders both in and out of the jail.
The Inmate Recognition & Identification System (IRIS) will be used at the County Jail and will also be used on the county’s 700 registered sex offenders. Within the jail the system will ensure deputies don’t mistakenly release the wrong person (which occasionally happens with large populations, aliases, and people who frankly don’t want to be there).
But that isn’t where the use of the technology stops. Eventually, according to AZFamily.com, deputies would use their iPhones in the field to scan citizens, immediately retrieving their criminal history. It isn’t clear under what sort of circumstances the county believes they will be able to take iris scans in the field, though it seems they would only be constitutionally allowed as incident to arrest.
The database will take some time to build. Obviously, those people who have already cycled in and out of the jail won’t be in there. But beginning with jail intakes seems like a good place to start, since around 70% of offenders break the law again. Once populated, the IRIS database will make it impossible for offenders who are in the system to successfully use aliases to avoid arrest.
Pinal County isn’t alone, though they are the first in the state. Forty-six other states have the technology in place too, which means the information inputted here will be shared across state lines. The goal is to have the IRIS database be a complete nationwide repository, similar to the fingerprint database of the FBI.
You can be sure, whether you are arrested in Pinal County or another jurisdiction, even if the IRIS technology isn’t in place that you will be catalogued and watched. It’s hard to live down an arrest and even harder to live down a criminal conviction. Such things follow you for years.
If you are facing criminal charges, the best way to avoid this stigma is to avoid a conviction altogether. Contact my offices today for a consultation on your criminal case and to discuss your available options.
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