Keep Bailing

A report submitted to the Board of Supervisors in Los Angeles County revealed how two deputies were cheating the bar code system by avoiding inmate’s cell checks. The bar code cheating lead at the downtown Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail to the firing of two deputies as well as disciplinary actions for eight other deputies.

These delinquent behaviors, now called the “Scannergate” scandal, are due largely to a March 2009 incident where a high security inmate was found dead after committing suicide in his cell.

Deputies in the jail system are responsible for checking the safety and health of inmates on an every half-hour basis. They are then required to document each check point by using a scanning device that scans a bar code near each row of cells.

According to investigators, after the suicide, they found a documented log that revealed a deputy had scanned all bar codes within a 35 second period, which is impossible as each bar code is located far from the next. Later, investigators from internal affairs found a “cheat sheet” inside a deputies desk that contained all the bar codes. After performing a computer search, they found how the cheat sheet had been applied all over the jail.

Michael Gennaco, the head of Office of Independent review, wrote that, “The scanner-cheating cases prove a disappointing lapse in integrity on the part of involved deputies. Their actions were overt and premeditated.“  He also added the suicide implies the “real consequences” of those actions.

Over the last year, another eight suicides have been reported in the jail known as Twin Towers. The Men’s Central Jail is not only Los Angeles County’s largest jail, it is the largest jail in the world.

According to the report, the deputy responsible confessed he had used software to copy the bar code information for the cheat sheet.