Now that the Correction Department has been granted the right to use high-powered body scanners to spot nonmetal objects on the incarcerated, they must also provide the ionized radiation exposure numbers to inmates before they are released.
A Health Department spokesperson told the New York Post that a state law mandates the release of radiation exposure figures to inmates who ask for them upon their release.
Dr. Norman Kleinman, an expert on radiological sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School Of Public Health said the risk is proportional to dose.
The New York Health Department said most inmates will be scanned less than once a month and it would take about 400 scans to absorb the same radiation produced by a single chest X-ray.
Before the use of nonmetal scanners was approved the Correction Department reported an average of 11.3 stabbings per month after the scanners were approved that number dropped to 5.3 stabbings per month.
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