HOME CONFINEMENT SAVES MONEY, PROVIDES BENEFITS

Federal probation officers who supervise prisoners serving their sentences in home confinement, as well as pretrial services officers working with defendants confined to home awaiting trial, save American taxpayers $95 million a year. With the use of intense supervision practices that help protect community safety, this cost-effective option also helps mitigate the skyrocketing costs associated with a prison system bursting at the seams.

How It Works

Defendants and offenders are selected for this type of supervision in one of three ways:

*Judges can require home confinement as a condition of release in place of pretrial detention, post-sentence incarceration, or when a defendant or offender has violated the conditions of their community supervision.

*The U.S. Parole Commission can use it instead of releasing an offender on parole, or revoking parole or mandatory release.

*The Federal Bureau of Prisons can require an offender to serve the last part of a prison sentence in home confinement.

Regardless of how the home confinement is imposed, it is federal probation and pretrial services officers who supervise the participants.

Defendants and prisoners stay in their homes for all or parts of each day. One of three levels of increasing restrictiveness, defined by the time a participant must remain in their homes, is used:

*Curfew-just evening hours.

*Home detention-all hours except for work or other approved activities.

*Home incarceration-all hours except for work, medical reasons, court appearances or court-ordered activities.

Policy and contract requirements are clear. Officers monitor persons under their supervision 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using one or more of these methods:

*Frequent, random phone calls.

*Personal home visits.

*Continuously signaling electronic monitoring devices.

What It Costs

Although those under home confinement pay more than 50 percent of electronic monitoring costs, the federal Judiciary incurs the cost for supervision and oversight by officers, which averages $16.94 a day per person. In comparison, daily costs of pretrial detention and post-sentence incarceration average $59.41 a person. With some 16,000 pre-trial defendants and prisoners a year selected to serve a sentence in home confinement-at any given time there will be 6,000 people under this type of confinement-it's easy to see how this cost-effective innovative alternative saves so much money.

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts Reviews Success of Home Confinement

Home confinement has been in use at the federal level for more than a dozen years. This may be the largest such program in the world and benefits defendants and offenders who otherwise would be confined in prison, as well as for the correctional system that would have to accommodate them. A recent report from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reviews the effectiveness and success of home confinement as an alternative to prison. The purpose of the review was to look at strengths and weaknesses and make recommendations for improvement.

"We've made important strides in refining the use of home confinement in the federal system," said Darren Gowen, Administrative Office Federal Corrections & Supervision Division, "but we have considerable ground to cover before the program can reach its full potential."

The review makes these recommendations:

* Development of a research-based participant selection tool.

*Enhancement of data collection and program oversight.

*Expanded training and educational efforts.