This system will allow inmates awaiting trial – and, eventually, those serving sentences for some crimes – to remain home with electronic ankle bracelets while law enforcement officers track their movements to make sure they remain at home or that they only travel to court-approved destinations such as school or work.
Guilford County is expected to have an operational house arrest program within the next 30 to 60 days. The first phase of the program will be funded out of the Guilford County Sheriff's Department's federal forfeiture fund, which contains money the department has collected by seizing cars, money and other property from those who have committed crimes. Much of the money and property for auction that goes into the fund has been seized from drug dealers.
According to Guilford County Sheriff's Department Major Debbie Montgomery, while the electronic house arrest program will initially be paid for out of federal forfeiture dollars, the program will be included as an item in the Sheriff's Department's budget starting in July 1, 2012.
The move is expected to help relieve overcrowding in the county's jails, and it comes at something of an unusual time – just months before Guilford County is expected to open a new 1,032-bed jail in downtown Greensboro.
Dallas-based Balfour Beatty Construction Inc. is expected to turn the new jail over to the Sheriff's Department in December of this year, and the new jail should start housing inmates in late February or early March 2012.
The idea of using house arrest to save Guilford County money and help manage the jail population was discussed by county officials in 2006, after a 2005 jail study known as the Kimme report declared that Guilford County needed a new jail to deal with its jail overcrowding problem.
Given that the new jail opens early next year, and the county will be swimming in available jail space at least for a while after it opens, the timing of the introduction of an electronic house arrest program.
Two county officials who asked not to be identified said they thought one factor at play was that the Sheriff's Department wanted to make sure the jail referendum passed and the jail was being built before electronic house arrest was put in place. One of the major selling points for building a giant new jail was the fact that the county's jail system is so overcrowded. Since the new jail is on its way, the two said, there was no reason not to use the program that everyone now seems to think is an obvious choice.
Montgomery said the truth is nothing of the sort. She said Sheriff BJ Barnes and others in the Sheriff's Department have always thought electronic house arrest was a good idea for Guilford County, but that some issues needed to be worked out between all the players first.
For instance, Montgomery said, some judges wanted the Sheriff's Department to decide which inmates would get house arrest and which would remain in the county's jails. However, Montgomery said, Barnes didn't want the Sheriff's Department to have that responsibility or the related liability concerns.
She said some of the key people who took part in the talks five years ago are now gone, and others are in their place, making the way for the move. She added that now there's a great deal of consensus that electronic house arrest is a great tool for Guilford County. "There are new players," Montgomery said.
An impressive collection of those players met on Friday, June 17 in the main conference room at the Sheriff's Department's headquarters in the Otto Zenke building in downtown Greensboro for about two hours to discuss the implementation of the system – as well as to talk about other justice and crime prevention issues.
About 20 people met, including Montgomery – who for the most part ran the meeting – and Guilford County Sheriff's Department Col. Randy Powers, Greensboro Police Chief Ken Miller, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Lindsay Davis, Chief District Court Judge Wendy Enochs, Public Defender Fred Lind, District Attorney Doug Henderson, Guilford County Manager Brenda Jones Fox, Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne, Pretrial Services Director Wheaton Casey, Sheriff's Department Attorney Matt Mason, Commissioner Kirk Perkins, Commissioner Bruce Davis and representatives of the High Point Police Department including Major Derek Stafford and Major Eddie McCluney and other law enforcement and justice system officials.
Barnes was supposed to be at the meeting, but he was sick that day and could not attend.
While some county officials and justice system officials have met before to talk about electronic house arrest, the summit-like June 17 meeting of all the players is unprecedented in the history of those talks.
Commissioner Davis may justifiably feel like one of the most important people in Guilford County this week, because the meeting of all the top-level law enforcement and justice system officials was made at his request. At a Thursday, June 2 Board of Commissioners meeting, Davis read aloud a letter from an inmate in the county's High Point jail. That letter spoke of overcrowding, harsh conditions and long wait times for inmates awaiting trial – as well as of unfair treatment by the district attorney's office, court appointed attorneys and judges.
At that June 2 meeting, before he read the letter, Davis said he knew the person who wrote it from his childhood, and, Davis said, he wanted a meeting of the involved parties in an effort to address the issues brought up in the letter. Davis said he especially wanted to see what could be done to reduce jail overcrowding and to increase the speed at which inmates get their day in court.
While the implementation of house arrest comes suddenly – almost out of the blue after Davis' reading of the letter – it's clear the Sheriff's Department was ready to move swiftly on the measure because, over the years, the department has been studying the possible use of the system.
The program will cost the county about $3.85 per day per person, which comes to roughly $1,400 per person per year. However, it's expected to save more money than it costs by keeping people out of the county's jails. It cost about $59 a day to keep an inmate in jail.
Miller said the program had been widely used in Charlotte, where he was senior deputy police chief before coming to Greensboro, and, he said, it was a valuable tool for law enforcement.
He said management of the system is easier than one might think because the only situations that need to be dealt with are those in which the users are not where they should be, or are doing something like attempting to forcibly remove the ankle device.
Miller said other factors contribute to ease of monitoring as well. For one thing, he said, there's a good deal of compliance from those being monitored.
"Most people aren't cutting their monitors off," Miller said.
He said that's because they understand that attempting to remove the device is a felony. They also know, he said, that they are going to have to go back before a judge, and they understand that, if they don't comply with the court's orders, they'll have to answer to that judge.
"It is a structured supervision environment," Miller said.
Sometimes the judges will require that someone attend class and the devices let law enforcement officials know if that person was at school on any given day.
"If you're not, we'll know," Miller said.
He also said the system will allow the court to put in place, say, a dusk to dawn curfew.
Miller said that, in Charlotte, before the use of ankle bracelets, an officer would knock on the door in the middle of the night to make sure someone was complying with a curfew. But he said that method was highly intrusive and was a disturbance to family members and others who lived in the residences. Ankle bracelets solve that problem.
"It needs to be ordered by the courts," Montgomery said.
Henderson said the district attorney's office is behind the move. He told Montgomery that his office and the Sheriff's Department were not at odds on these issues. "You and I are allies," he said.
After the June 17 meeting, Commissioners Davis and Perkins said they were pleased the county was going to get the program. Perkins said he was pleasantly surprised that everyone in law enforcement as well as justice officials now seem to agree it's a very good idea.
Electronic house arrest has been around since the '80s, and the county has been talking about it for years, so it's not clear why suddenly, in 2011, everyone thinks it's a great idea. To many, it seemed like a great idea years ago when the county first began discussing it seriously.
Montgomery said the first phase of the program will focus on those inmates in jail awaiting trial and then, she said, she was interested in seeing if it could be used effectively for some of those offenders who have been sentenced, such as those in jail for non-payment of child support.
Several major studies have shown that people who are supposed to be receiving regular child support payments from their spouse under a court order are more likely to get money if the spouse is sentenced to house arrest with the ability to go to work rather than simply thrown in jail with no prospect of working and making money.
At the meeting, Montgomery suggested perhaps the house arrest program could be used for the home imprisonment of those convicted of DWIs as well. However, representatives of the justice community pointed out that, in many cases, state statue specifically calls for jail time if the perpetrator is incarcerated for DWI.
Source http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/
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