Luxury Webblog Spot

Rather than serve time at the Montgomery County Jail, some nonviolent tiffany offenders will now have the option of being monitored though global positioning satellite- equipped ankle bracelets.

One goal of the program is to help with overcrowding at the jail, which is built for 118 prisoners but averaged 180 last year.

Jail officials are going through their prisoner rolls to see who might qualify for the program. The bracelets also give county judges a new option in sentencing people.

So far the sheriff’s office is monitoring three people with the bracelets, which are made by a company called iSECUREtrac.

Two of them had been jailed for failing to make child-support payments.

“One of the main charges that we’re trying to target [for the program] is non-support,” said Capt. Robert Hall, who oversees the jail. “With this program we can divert them from jail, put them back out in their residences, require them to work as a condition of that and make sure that they are paying their child support. That way it’s a win-win for everyone.”

Deputy Derrick Stamper is the only deputy assigned to the program full time, which silver necklaces limits the number of people that can be monitored to about 25. Other deputies have undergone training to do the monitoring, however.

Many offenses, ranging from murder to some drug crimes, disqualify people from ever being eligible for the program.

To be eligible for monitoring, an offender must volunteer for the program and be sentenced to or facing a sentence of less than 12 months.

Stamper said he has already been hearing from lawyers and family members who are interested in whether particular people are eligible.

A man waiting in the jail lobby said he was there to try to enroll in the program to avoid jail time for violating his probation.

“Either I can have the ankle brace or do the six months in jail,” said Anthony Rasnake. “tiffany bangles Obviously I want to work and pay may bills.”

Stamper said studies have shown lower recidivism rates for offenders who undergo monitoring, which severely curtails where offenders can go, typically limiting them to home, school, work or rehabilitation programs.

The electronic leash is so tight that Stamper said “if they stop and get gas they have to tell me which gas station they are going to stop and get gas, and which day and which time.”

The system allows for real-time tracking of offenders and automatically alerts authorities if the ankle bracelet is tampered with, Stamper said.

Offenders have to pay the cost of their own monitoring in the form of a $40 start-up fee, $12 bangles for weekly drug screening and $14 for daily monitoring.

Incarcerating them, on the other hand, costs taxpayers about $45 a day.