Inmates at prisons in Maryland are currently identified with plastic ID cards, but the Associated Press reports that the U.S. Justice Department has awarded grants to the Maryland Division of Corrections and other agencies throughout the nation to implement biometric iris scanners to prevent inmate misidentification.
The funding for the scanners will be donated to more than 400 other prisons across the U.S. that expressed interest in installing the scanners. If the trials are successful, a federal mandate requiring prisons to use the system may be proposed.
"While this technology has been around generally for 10 to 15 years, it just hasn’t gotten into the mainstream yet," Fred Wilson of the Maryland Department of Corrections told the news provider. "You have to remember that the average law enforcement agency is very small and they can’t afford this stuff."
In February, an inmate at Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore released the wrong inmate after a man serving three consecutive life sentences swapped ID plastic cards with another inmate set to be released the same day, according to another Associated Press report. The man was arrested shortly after leaving the prison, but the incident drew bad publicity for the entire Maryland prison system.
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