House Detention For Pre-Trial A Growing Trend
Newsday has a long article about the growth in the use of monitored home detention for what would otherwise be pre-trial inmates.
The courts, many experts say, are embracing home-confinement technology as it becomes available and as affordable ways of using it are developed. The more common use is for home detention after conviction, but use of pretrial electronic monitoring with electronic ankle bracelets and other devices is growing. “The general public is chafing under paying taxes for prisons,” said Marc Renzema, a criminal justice professor at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, who tracks the impact of monitoring and confinement techniques. The expense of prisons is the “driver” of increasingly elaborate bail agreements, he said, noting that, nationally, the number of offenders being monitored electronically grew from zero in 1982 to between 8,000 and 9,000 in 1990. Today, Renzema said, as many as 200,000 Americans — most of them already convicted, and some having served prison time –are being monitored electronically.
Much of the article is about the kind of security conditions imposed on alleged criminals who have lots of money to protect them from the every-day jail experience.
When the Muttontown NY couple convicted of keeping domestic servants in slave-like conditions were granted bail before their trial last year, they temporarily escaped imprisonment. But the home Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani returned to was hardly sweet: Their activities, communications and visitors were monitored 24 hours a day by private security guards — a system that cost the couple about $15,000 a day … All doors are locked and only armed security guards hold the keys to their Muttontown home. Guards are posted at two of the doors at all times. The alarm system code was changed, and only guards know the code. All communications are monitored by another guard in the home’s basement. Only one phone, one computer and one fax machine can be used, and all conversations must be in English. Two children with severe diabetes can keep cell phones for medical emergencies; all calls are monitored …
Some of the conditions for the pretrial release of David Brooks, who is accused of looting DHB Industries:
- Post $400-million personal-recognizance bond, secured by $48 million in assets.
- Surrender passport.
- Remain in an apartment in an undisclosed location, where he is monitored through an electronic bracelet.
- Employ a security firm approved by the U.S. attorney’s office. The firm posts two guards, at least one of them armed, who can use “reasonable force” to detain Brooks if he attempts to flee.
- Access to only one computer in the apartment with one Internet connection.
- Consent to unannounced searches by the security firm.
- Monitoring of any visitors to the apartment, who are limited primarily to family and attorneys.
- Movement outside of the apartment is restricted to court appearances and doctor appointments, and only after notifying the U.S. attorney’s office.
More details in the article.