Hoosegow Goes High-Tech With Home Jailing : Electronic Surveillance System Lets Feet Do Limited Walking

A month ago, she was in Las Colinas women’s jail, serving a year for writing $15,000 in bad checks. She was five months pregnant, could only see her children once a month and was unsatisfied with the her prenatal care.

She said it was the worst time of her life.

Now, thanks to a year-old San Diego County Probation Department electronic surveillance program, Patricia, who asked that her real name not be used, is living at her parents’ home in La Mesa and taking care of her 1- and 2-year-old daughters and 12-year-old son.

Fastened to Patricia’s ankle is a small radio transmitter. The transmitter sends a signal to a box attached to the telephone, and if Patricia wanders too far from the box, a probation officer is alerted. She is, in effect, under house arrest.

“It’s really very simple when you get right down to it. If the radio transmitter goes more than 150 feet from (the box), it calls the computer and says, ‘He’s gone,’ ” said Probation Director Ron Barkett.

Both in Program

Patricia, 29, is one of 55 people currently serving the last 10 to 90 days of their sentence “in custody” on the electronic surveillance program. Her husband, who also was convicted of check fraud, is also going through the program. He is allowed to go to work five days a week.

Since July 1, 1986, nearly 250 people have gone through the program, and county officials Wednesday declared it an unequivocal success.

“It costs the taxpayer nothing. The offender pays the entire cost of the program, including the staffing,” said Vicki Markey, deputy chief of the Probation Department.

The program actually saves money for the county because it’s cheaper than keeping an inmate in jail, Markey said. Most of the people in the electronic surveillance program have served time in a work-furlough facility, where they pay the county $15 a day--about half what it costs to house them.

Those in the electronic surveillance program also pay $15 a day, which covers the entire cost of the program.

In addition to the cost savings, the electronic surveillance program has freed up a few spaces in San Diego County’s jail system. “It does remove people from preciously needed jail beds,” Markey said. “That wasn’t our goal when we started our pilot program, but it has been an outgrowth.”

Four months ago, the Sheriff’s Department began permitting some inmates--none of whom have committed violent crimes, most of whom are women--to enter the program.

The other participants are from the county’s work-furlough program. Normally they would return to a county facility right after work; now they just go home--and stay there.

Generally, the only time inmates in the program are permitted to leave their homes is when they must go to the store, the doctor or work, Barkett said. Even then, they have to get permission, and a probation officer sometimes drives to the destination to check up on them.

The only snag in the system comes when the computer indicates that an inmate has left his home when in fact he hasn’t. When the computer shows a “false positive,” a probation officer calls the house, no matter what time it is. Until the bugs of the system are worked out, that means that inmates sometimes get several calls in the very early morning.

“We sometimes get an irate participant because he gets called two or three times in a night (even though he never left),” said John Weinold, a probation officer who helped set up the program.

Some areas of the county are more susceptible to false positives than others, but it is not clear exactly why, Weinold said, adding that it may have something to do with interference from Navy radio transmitters.

Most of the people in the electronic surveillance program are serving time for drunk driving, Markey said. All participants are tested for alcohol and drug use at least once a week, and they never know when they might be checked.

If they are found to have used any type of drug, they are sent back to jail or a work-furlough detention center, and they don’t get any credit for having been on the electronic surveillance program.

“You can’t even have mouthwash or cough syrup,” Patricia said. “The only thing they really let you have is aspirin.” Inmates may use prescription or over-the-counter drugs if they get special permission.

So far, the electronic surveillance program has an 85% success rate, Markey said. Some participants are kicked out after they tamper with the band that attaches the transmitter to their leg.

One inmate even tried to slide the band off by greasing it with petroleum jelly, Barkett said. Most of the time, however, participants pay heed to the warning they get when they begin the program: Don’t try to take off the transmitter.

Impossible to Refasten

It is easy enough to cut the band loose, Markey said, but it is impossible to refasten, so anyone who tried to get free would be found out when a probation officer came to check up on them.

Of course, an inmate could leave town, but all of the participants are considered “low risk,” Markey said. Many of them, like Patricia and her husband, are first-time offenders who have never been in jail.

“Higher-risk offenders we wouldn’t put on the program under any circumstances,” Weinold said. Violent inmates and sex offenders are ineligible for the program, he added.

About the only criticism of the program has come from hard-line law-and-order types, Markey said. “There’s a feeling sometimes that it’s not sufficient punishment. Some of the judges--most of them support it, but some of them feel (electronic surveillance) is not punitive,” she said.

But Barkett noted that that “it’s not a cakewalk” for the participants. Even though they live at home, they are still in custody.

Patricia’s husband, who works as a welder, said that even though “I like (the program) a lot . . . because you get to be with your family,” it is still punitive because “you can’t go nowhere, can’t do what you want to do. It’s like being on work furlough.”

Patricia is ecstatic over the program. During the five months she was in jail, she only saw her children twice.

“It was really hard on them. Just because of my one daughter being so young (the 2-year-old), now she doesn’t let me out of her sight,” she said.

“I still feel like I’m in custody because you can’t go anywhere except to a doctor’s appointment or the store,” she said. “It’s just the advantage of being with your family and being able to take care of the things that need to be taken care of, and getting reintegrated into society.”

When Patricia and her husband are officially “released” in October, they will still have to pay off the $15,000 in bad checks they signed, and they will have to struggle to stay on their feet financially.

Compared to jail, however, electronic surveillance and the difficulties that lie ahead seem almost easy, Patricia said. Of her time behind bars, she said: “There could never be anything in the world worse than going back to that place again.”