House Arrest Research Paper

772 Words4 Pages

Today, I would like to discuss one of the Intermediate Sanctions: House Arrest and Electronic Monitoring. House arrest is an intermediate community corrections program where offenders can live at home but have restrictions on travel. House arrest is an option in which the court system have mercy and compassion for an offender instead of sending them to prison or juvenile detention time. In some cases electronic communication is assigned to where an offenders conversations will be monitored. Electronic monitoring devices are to be worn by an offender on the wrist or ankle. In either event, this will send a signal to the central computer in a monitoring center through the offender’s telephone line and its monitored twenty four hours a day …show more content…

An offender can’t take advantage of good time credits. This systems only allows an offender to serve lesser jail time in regards to good behavior. In speaking on this, if an offender breaks the rules of house arrest they will go back to jail and serve the rest of their initial sentence. Martin, Hanrahan & Bowers (2009) explains the strain that house arrest and electronic monitoring impacts family members. Nonetheless, an offender that’s living with a family member are grateful and happy that the offender wasn’t jailed but some are disappointed and angry. In speaking on this, findings have indicated that the offender’s families become embarrassed and some have to take on additional outside household tasks and feel punished along with the offender. On the other hand, offenders that live with their children are not able to go to their extracurricular activities, movies, dinner or even visit other family members. Consequently, this puts a tremendous strain on relationships/marriages which can tear a family apart. According to Payne & Gainey (2002) they explain that the sentence length of an offender that’s been on sanctions longer are more prone to violate their conditions than offenders on shorter