GETTING A LEG UP ON CRIMINALS

Ankle Bracelets Will Allow Electronic Monitoring of Individuals
Serving Conditional Sentences

Martha Stewart's signature accessory will become de rigueur among some
members of the criminal element in the Halifax area starting May 1.

The province's Justice Department just awarded a $300,000 contract to
a Nova Scotia company, Mammoth Communications, to provide 25 ankle
bracelets somewhat like the one worn by the domestic diva during her
five months of house arrest for lying about insider trading
activities. The contract also includes a 24-hour monitoring system.

"It's another tool in the basket to make sure offenders are complying
with sentencing conditions," said Gary Dupuis, corrections director
for the Justice Department.

The bracelets contain global positioning satellite technology and in
addition to an ankle bracelet, people carry a device on their hip that
tracks their movements outside the house. The devices are supplied by
an American company called Isecuritytrac and are widely used in the
United States, Mr. Dupuis said.

The hip apparatus goes into a docking station attached to the phone
line when the offender is at home. It sends information to a
monitoring system that allows corrections officers to track where a
person has been.

"It tells us if an offender has been in a 'no-go' zone," Mr. Dupuis
said.

Right now, compliance is carried out through random checks from
corrections officers.

Halifax criminal lawyer Pat Duncan favours the introduction of the
electronic monitoring system.

He worries a lack of public confidence may result in fewer conditional
sentences and more incarceration in the future.

"I've been doing this for 26 years now, and I think conditional
sentences are probably one of the best things that have happened
because the criminal justice system is a very blunt instrument," he
said. "There are very few options available in adult court. This is
one I've really welcomed. It would be a shame to see it diminished due
to a lack of confidence based on a lack of adequate
information."

That lack of public confidence was magnified in the last federal
election by Conservative accusations that conditional sentences are
soft on crime.

But only certain offenders are eligible for community sentencing. A
term must be less than two years and cannot be for an offence that
carries a mandatory minimum sentence, and the judge must be convinced
the offender does not pose a danger to the community.

As well, offenders must also comply with conditions, the most common
being alcohol and drug abuse treatment, curfews and community service.
The average length of conditional sentences in Canada is eight months.

Nova Scotia is not the first province to use electronic monitoring to
enforce conditional sentences. But it is the first to adopt global
positioning technology. The other provincial programs, in British
Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Newfoundland and
Labrador, use bracelets containing radio transmitters (called passive
monitoring) that only show that an offender is inside the house arrest
zone.

It was in October 1996 that house arrest was first handed down by Nova
Scotia courts as part of conditional sentencing.

The offender was Ralph Parker, a young Dartmouth man who was convicted
of running down and killing two Cole Harbour girls. He was sentenced
to two years less a day of house arrest for causing the deaths of the
Orichefsky sisters, Renee Lee, 15, and Danielle, 13, in the July 1995
crash.

Under the sentencing terms, Mr. Parker was allowed out to attend work
and school and to serve 480 hours of community service. The father of
two found himself back under house arrest last year for 18 months,
this time for marijuana trafficking.

The girls' father, the late Joseph Orichefsky, said at the time the
sentence made a mockery of the justice system. Many other Nova
Scotians also expressed outrage.

But Joel Pink, Halifax lawyer and former defence counsel to Mr.
Parker, said the sentence is one of the most restrictive in its conditions.

"My advice (to another client) would be, if you can handle jail, do
it," Mr. Pink said. "This type of conditional sentence is very
onerous. You are under the complete control of your supervisor, 365
days a year."

Mr. Duncan agreed.

"I've had the same comments from some of my clients saying, 'I think
I'd rather do the time,' especially the more experienced criminals,
people who really know the system, who have seen what it's like in the
jail and under house arrest," he said.

"If you're in an institution, you have access to your meals, other
people, a roof over your head. It is a culture. If you're somebody who
is not intimidated by that culture, then you're more
comfortable."

He said that depending on the sentence, two years less a day under
house arrest means "two years less a day, period."

"If you get two years less a day in an institution, you're going to be
done in 18 months. If you should be successful in getting out on a
form of parole or day parole, you could be out and living a less
restrictive life than house arrest in anywhere from one-third to up to
two-thirds of the sentence imposed."

Every person sees conditional sentences differently. Even with the
added constraints of electronic monitoring, courts can't take a
cookie-cutter approach.

"For example, if you have a guy that's working and he's got a wife, a
couple of kids and a job, it may not make a big change in his life,"
Mr. Duncan said.

A 2000 report by the John Howard Society found that in the United
States, electronic monitoring supervision costs an estimated $5 to $25
US per offender per day, about $1,825 to $9,125 per year. And there
may be a move to monitor as many offenders as possible, regardless of
whether the person is at a high risk to breach the conditions of his
or her sentence.

"Although it is community-based, electronic monitoring is a form of
imprisonment," the report says. "However, because it appears to be
cheaper than institutional incarceration, there is potential for the
media, the public, judges and prosecutors to see electronic monitoring
as a way to get tough on crime without incurring the costs of building
more or larger correctional institutions. The call to 'lock 'em up and
throw away the key' . . . becomes the call to 'monitor their every
move,' with the same effect that offenders are treated more harshly
than they need to be."

Newfoundland and Labrador has used electronic monitoring since
1994.

Corrections director Marvin McNutt said the Newfoundland and Labrador
program was introduced to keep inmate numbers down. "We used to have
800 people admitted each year just for failure to pay a fine."

There are now about 150 offenders subject to conditional sentence
orders and most are under home arrest provisions. But only 35 are
electronically monitored and they are high-risk cases, Mr. McNutt
said. The province has 40 devices.

Violent offenders "are the ones we would target first," he said. "We
may very well get a person convicted of sexual assault, a serious
assault. They may be at a low risk to reoffend and it may very well be
a one-time occurrence, but with the serious nature of the offence, we
may raise the level of supervision and apply electronic monitoring.
It's a higher level of supervision."

None of the people being electronically monitored have committed
serious offences, and only three "actually got rid of the device and
absconded," Mr. McNutt said. There have been "one or two cases where a
break and enter occurred or where a car was stolen."

Newfoundland and Labrador pays $168,000 per year to a British company
to lease the equipment for the program, including computer equipment;
the cost to keep an offender behind bars is roughly $200 per day.

More importantly, offenders in the community have greater access to
programs to reduce their chances of reoffending.

"Where there is a treatment condition, these people are required to
participate, whether it is substance abuse, skills training or anger
management," Mr. McNutt said. "Even though we have institutional
programs, there are still long waiting lists."

The province's auditor general requires a report on conditional
sentence compliance every two years. The latest, completed about a
year ago, showed that compliance with electronic monitoring was in the
95 per cent range, 90 per cent without the device, he said.

"The most effective deterrent for offenders is the probability of
getting caught," Mr. McNutt said. "With electronic monitoring, there
is a higher risk of getting caught."

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MONITORING DEVICES

Electronic monitoring facts:

.In 2000-01, the cost of maintaining a person in federal prison was
$185.44 per day.

.Alternatives such as probation, bail supervision and community
supervision range from $5 to $25 per day.

.It costs up to $20 per day to monitor an offender using global
positioning satellite devices.

.Ontario reports it costs about $1,600 per year to supervise an inmate
under house arrest, double that if the inmate is being monitored
electronically. That same inmate in an Ontario provincial jail would
cost taxpayers about $52,000 a year.

.Electronic monitoring is viewed by corrections communities across
North America as very successful, with up to a 95 per cent rate of
compliance.

.Most American jurisdictions use some form of electronic monitoring,
many employing GPS technology.

Sources: John Howard Society of Canada, Province of Ontario.