House Arrest Is Worthy Innovation--if It’s Not Just for the Well-Off

Convicted slumlord Milton Avol is now making history as the first person in Los Angeles County to be serving an electronically monitored confinement outside jail. Avol, a Beverly Hills neurosurgeon, is serving a 30-day sentence for health, fire and safety violations in one of the apartment buildings that he owns in Los Angeles. A device worn as a bracelet will alert authorities if Avol leaves the property.

The sentence--to live in the filth that he refused to correct--has a social and poetic kind of justice to it, which I enjoy. But on another level of social concern I believe that it is unfortunate.

Avol’s sentencing, by Municipal Judge Veronica Simmons McBeth, coincides with the start of a federally funded experiment in Los Angeles that will sentence up to 100 criminals to electronically monitored home confinementin the next year. Twenty other counties nationwide are experimenting with similar programs.

National interest in these programs has been phenomenal and understandable. In the face of severe prison over-crowding, they could not only save costs; they also could lower the risks that society faces because so many serious offenders now get nominal probation.

In California it costs about $35,000 to build a new prison cell and $15,000 a year to keep a person in prison. Electronically monitored house arrest costs about $5,000 a year per person, and less if the offender helps pay for his own supervision. Although house arrest is more expensive than routine probation, it potentially offers the community a much higher degree of protection.

House arrest is also thought to be socially cost-effective. Offenders who are ordered to participate in drug and alcohol programs can be monitored. And, because house arrest allows the offender to remain in the community,the corrupting or stigmatizing effects that are associated with prison can be avoided.

These are among the reasons why I became a strong advocate of house-arrest sentencing and testified before various federal committees on the appropriateness of Los Angeles as a study site.

Paradoxically, because I am an advocate of this alternative to imprisonment, I am concerned about the precedent that Avol’s sentence may be setting for the experiment. It would seem to validate the very criticisms that opponents of such programs have raised--that they will widen thenet of social control, increase the total cost of criminal sentencing and foster a two-track system of justice that favors the haves over the have-nots.

Because house-arrest programs are in the experimental stage, judges are, reasonably enough, exercising great caution in selecting participants. Most programs limit participation to property offenders with minor criminal records and no history of drug abuse. Such strict screening makes it hard to find eligible offenders except among white-collar criminals like politicians, lawyers, business people--and physicians, like Dr. Avol.

While the community faces little risk from nonviolent and low-risk offenders, they are the least likely to have been sentenced to prison in any case. Normally they would have been given a fine or sentenced to routine probation. Since probation costs the taxpayer less than $2,000 per year per offender, house arrest represents an increase in the costs of criminal sentencing. Consequently, house-arrest programs may not only fail to reduce prison crowding and save dollars; they may also widen the net of social control and increase the corrections bill. The greatest irony is that if these programs are filled with “low-risk” white-collar offenders, higher-risk “ordinary” criminals will continue to get probation with minimal supervision.

Some of these programs raise further questions of equity. Some charge a “supervision fee” of $15 to $50 per month; if electronic monitors are used, the fee can be as high as $200. This, plus requirements that the offender live in a court-approved residence with a telephone, may discriminate against the young and the poor.

Each year Los Angeles County sentences about 20,000 criminals to state prison and local jails. Statistics show that about half of them have been convicted of property or public-order offenses, not violent crimes. Many of these offenders are young, and have not yet committed themselves to a life in crime. A prison term is likely to scar them psychologically, as well as to reduce their prospects for entering the legitimate mainstream. Surely some of these offenders are suitable for stringent community-based options. Such programs can mandate employment, counseling and community service. Ultimately, both the offender and society stand to gain.

It will be unfortunate if, a year from now, Los Angeles County looks back on its experiment and discovers that only low-risk white-collar offenders participated. If so, we will have played it safe in the short run. We also will have missed a real opportunity to test whether a program can be designed for serious offenders that holds them accountable, is safe and costs less than prison.

What’s worse, sticking to low-risk offenders may bring a high success rate. If the same programs are then extended to more dangerous offenders, the consequences for public safety could be quite serious.

The Los Angeles program should accept the challenge of putting house arrest to a tougher test. Even in the short run, it would be no riskier than the present situation of putting serious offenders on routine probation.