Criminals to Trade Bars for Home Life : Electronic Bracelets Will Beep if Prisoners Stray; Program to Be Tested for One Year

Some convicted county criminals will soon be doing their time at home, restrained not by bars or shackles but by electronic sensors.

The year-long experiment, set to begin July 1, is being touted as one way to free up precious jail space the county needs for violent and hardened criminals. It will be the first such program in California.

San Diego County supervisors unanimously approved the idea Tuesday with little discussion.

Now Cecil Steppe, the county’s chief probation officer, will seek proposals from private companies that produce the electronic equipment.

Steppe, who runs the county’s honor camps and work-furlough center, will then select 50 volunteers from a short-term work-furlough program to be the experiment’s first participants. These inmates, who work regular jobs during the day, will be allowed to go home, rather than to the county’s work-furlough center, at night.

The inmates will wear bracelets on their wrists or legs. The bracelets will hold small transmitters that emit an inaudible signal, which will be picked up by a receiver attached to the inmate’s telephone.

Any time the inmate strays more than 150 feet from the receiver without the county’s permission, the absence will be noted on a computer. The system will also be able to detect any tampering with the household equipment, Steppe said.

Steppe said the home-custody program will be open only to work-furlough participants who have no recent history of violence or escape. Child molesters, rapists and drug pushers will be among those excluded from the program.

The inmates will be sentenced to their homes for no more than 90 days. Steppe said studies in other states have shown that most people cannot resist for a longer period the temptations to leave their homes.

“In some ways this can be tougher than being in jail,” Steppe said. “You come home and your kids beg you to go to the park or to get some ice cream. You’re not free to do that.”

The inmates will be monitored by probation workers, who will check the computer print-outs regularly and ensure that participants are reporting to their jobs as scheduled. The inmates will also be subject to random searches, and drug and alcohol testing.

Any inmate caught violating the terms of the program will be returned to work-furlough, an honor camp or a county jail, Steppe said.

The cost of the equipment, the salaries of two probation workers and administration will be met by a $15-per-day fee on the participants, the same amount they now pay to be in the work-furlough program. Steppe said he expects those costs to be about $131,000 during the experiment.

After six months and again after one year, Steppe will give the Board of Supervisors a program evaluation.

“I’ll come back and tell you that either this is the best thing we could ever get into or it’s not a success and we should discontinue it,” Steppe said.

The San Diego experiment will be the first use of such technology in California, according to Jerry Buck, president of the state association of chief probation officers.

Steppe said electronic surveillance has been tried with success in a handful of counties across the nation, including Florida’s Palm Beach County and Oregon’s Clackamas and Linn counties.

If successful, Steppe said, home-custody could trigger a chain reaction that will open more of the county’s secure jail beds for hardened criminals. If inmates in work-furlough can be sentenced to their homes, more honor camp inmates can get into the work-furlough center. Spots in the honor camp can then be taken by low-level offenders now in county jail cells.

Assistant Sheriff Clifford Powell, who supervises the county jail system, said he welcomed the experiment in home custody.

“It’s wonderful,” he said. “I think the pilot program will be very successful.”

Powell said his only regret is that the program will not be in place until July and will serve only 50 inmates at a time.

Powell said the county jail population reached an all-time high Tuesday of 2,816 inmates. The six jails were designed to hold 1,694 inmates.