SCANNERS GET GOODS ON JAIL CONTRABANDITS

Rikers Island visitors are turning in weapons and drugs in record
numbers because of high-tech metal detectors recently installed at a
new entry checkpoint, The Post has learned.

The city Correction Department, which began using the futuristic
scanners at its Visit Control Building on June 7, has been pulling in
four times the usual amount of contraband ever since, officials said.

The haul includes knives, razors, scissors, drugs and a stun
gun.

The sophisticated new scanners - six bright red, cylindrical chambers
- - are capable of detecting a tiny amount of metal in the eyelet of a
boot.

"They're very modernistic looking - almost like something out of a
spaceship," said chief of department William Fraser.

"To look at them, they're kind of intimidating," he said, adding "The
lay person would say to himself 'I'm not going in there with
something I'm not supposed to have.' "

All visitors have to enter one of the chambers.

One at a time they walk through a curved bullet-proof glass door and
are scanned for metal from head to toe. If no metal is detected, a
door slides open on the other side, letting them out to board a bus
that takes them to the island's 10 jails.

But if metal is scanned, a computer-generated voice states, "We beg
you to come back and deposit metal objects in the chest on the
doorway" and the exit door remains shut.

Visitors can then remove questionable items - like keys, belt buckles
or watches - for X-raying.

Or they can consent to be searched or they can leave.

Repeat visitors, knowing what's ahead, have been filling up a red
"amnesty box" before reach the intimidating red scanning chambers.

The "amnesty box" is the last place they can turn over contraband
without arrest.

The box, which normally takes one month to fill up, has had to be
emptied twice in the past two weeks, officials said.

They've collected scores of knives, razors, scissors, dental picks,
Walkmans and beepers containing drugs, balloons filled with pot and
crack, pencil sharpeners with single-edged razors on them, cloned cell
phones, a stun gun, and a knife hidden in a pen.

Until the scanners went up, there were no searches at the visitors
building, putting guards and other visitors in jeopardy, Fraser said.

But the new scanners are not 100 percent foolproof. One visitor
managed to get a razor through, but was caught during a later search,
officials reported.

The chambers, which cost about $50,000 each, can handle three or four
people a minute and are expected to process Rikers' 500,000 annual
visitors without any delays.

"These security doors are the most recent initiative in our ongoing
program to improve safety and further reduce inmate violence in the
jail system," said Correction Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

The city jail system expects to end fiscal 2000 with fewer than 75
inmate slashings and stabbings - down from 102 last year and 1,093 in
1995.

There have been 293 visitor arrests so far this fiscal year, which
ends June 30 - down from 347 last year.