New Hampshire County Expands Alternative Sanctions
New Hampshire County Expands Alternative Sanctions
The Program
Strafford County is one of 10 small New Hampshire counties, with a span of only 368 square miles. Considered part of the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy metro area, Strafford County has experienced significant population growth in the last 15 years, growing almost 60% to reach 120,000 citizens. As with most counties, its leadership is interested in maintaining the highest level of services, including public safety, cost-effectively.
The Strafford County Department of Corrections, under the guidance of the County Commission, opened a new jail in the county seat, Dover, in 2004 to deal with significant jail crowding issues. Before the new facility opened, the countys old 68-bed jail was housing 160 inmates, a recipe for inmate and officer safety issues. While the new facility has not reached capacity, the county continually seeks alternatives for inmates and pretrial defendants deemed not a risk to community safety.
The Strafford County Community Corrections Program has developed and manages these cost-effective alternatives. The department supervised 228 people in 2004 and supports three district courts and a superior court, and administers a variety of programs, including: a weekend community work program, step-down program, short-term residential drug and alcohol treatment, bail supervision, and an Administrative Home Confinement (EM) program.
The Home Confinement Electronic Monitoring and Step-Down Programs
The Strafford County Community Corrections Program began using electronic monitoring in 2003 to add an extra layer of supervision for certain community-based offenders. The Home Confinement Program involves the use of several electronic monitoring supervision tools to drive compliance to conditions placed on individuals, including both pretrial defendants and sentenced offenders, while they are released to community supervision. For sentenced offenders, the Step-Down Program is community-based supervision versus time at the Strafford Country Department of Corrections facility. This option rewards sentenced inmates who have taken responsibility for their actions and meaningful participation in jail programs. Both of these options offer an intermediate or alternative sanction.
Supervising sentenced offenders while in the community allows the offenders to transition from incarceration to the community, with the goal of increasing public safety, reducing recidivism, and managing jail crowding. The county has found that it is advantageous to use a mix of supervision technologies, applying the right level of supervision to maintain accountability while also managing costs. In this program, GPS tracking is reserved for higher risk inmates or defendants.
Strafford County selected BI Inc. for its supervision technology. Specifically, the Community Corrections Program is using a GPS tracking system called BI ExacuTrack, which allows officials to know within 10 meters where a person has been throughout the day. Despite varied terrain and limited cellular coverage in the relatively rural county, the department has found use of the ExacuTrack system now being used on 25% of all offenders on EM reliable. In addition, Strafford County is using BI HomeGuard 200, a radio-frequency monitoring system; BI Sobrietor for testing sobriety from the persons home; and BI GuardCenter, a 24/7 national monitoring center, to support the departments strict supervision efforts. Also being used are BI DriveBI, used by officers to verify location from outside their residence, and BI GuardWare on the Web, a password-protected Internet application that allows the agency to access and make updates to offender data, equipment, and schedules directly.
Successful completion of the program requires adherence to the rules and regulations as well as compliance with any conditions that have been ordered. Other requirements include payment of users fees (sliding scale is available for indigent clients). An offender typically spends several months in one of these electronic monitoring programs, although the range can vary significantly from a week to more than a year. Officials say participants appreciate being released to home detention so they can work and support their families.
The Results
As an element of its overall programs, electronic supervision technology has successfully supported the Strafford County Community Corrections Program in many ways, including:
The program continues to grow, moving from 12 participants under electronic supervision to more than 80 today, including 35 to 40 sentenced offenders and 50+ on pretrial supervision.
While in the program offenders pay varying levels of fees, depending on the type of supervision involved: GPS tracking is assessed at $14 a day; RF monitoring at $70 a week for sentenced offenders and $10 a week for pretrial defendants. These fees reduce the cost to administer these programs.
Both programs using electronic monitoring have contributed to fewer inmates in the new county jail, thereby avoiding more costly incarceration costs of $55/day and helping to avoid jail crowding issues. The County estimates it saves $1.2 million each year by moving these offenders to community supervision.
The departments ongoing communications efforts have built community support for this alternative. In a small county such as Strafford County, many county members will know individuals in the program and support their productive re-integration.
These programs are allowing individuals to maintain employment, pay taxes, and support families, further reducing the county financial burden.
The electronic supervision tools have assisted law enforcement. In one instance, the tracking data logged by the ExacuTrack GPS monitoring system was used to link an individual to a specific crime. The detailed GPS maps demonstrated the perpetrator was present at the time of the crime. This evidence was admissible in court.
For information on BI Corp., visit: http://www.bi.com