On Oct. 12, 2018, Daehaun White walked free, or so he thought. A guard handed him shoelaces and the $19 that had been in his pocket at the time of his booking, along with a letter from his public defender. The lanky 19-year-old had been sitting for almost a month in St. Louis’ Medium Security Institution, a city jail known as the Workhouse, after being pulled over for driving some friends around in a stolen Chevy Cavalier. When the police charged him with tampering with a motor vehicle — driving a car without its owner’s consent — and held him overnight, he assumed he would be released by morning. He told the police that he hadn’t known that the Chevy, which a friend had lent him a few hours earlier, was stolen. He had no previous convictions. But the $1,500 he needed for the bond was far beyond what he or his family could afford. It wasn’t until his public defender, Erika Wurst, persuaded the judge to lower the amount to $500 cash, and a nonprofit fund, the Bail Project, paid it for him, that he was able to leave the notoriously grim jail… When he finally read Wurst’s letter, however, he realized there was a catch… the judge, Nicole Colbert-Botchway, had ordered him to wear an ankle monitor that would track his location at every moment using GPS. For as long as he would wear it, he would be required to pay $10 a day to a private company, Eastern Missouri Alternative Sentencing Services, or EMASS. Just to get the monitor attached, he would have to report to EMASS and pay $300 up front — enough to cover the first 25 days, plus a $50 installation fee.
Over the past half-century, the number of people behind bars in the United States jumped by more than 500%, to 2.2 million. This extraordinary rise, often attributed to decades of “tough on crime” policies and harsh sentencing laws, has ensured that even as crime rates have dropped since the 1990s, the number of people locked up and the average length of their stay have increased. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the cost of keeping people in jails and prisons soared to $87 billion in 2015 from $19 billion in 1980, in current dollars.
Yet like the system of wealth-based detention they are meant to help reform, ankle monitors often place poor people in special jeopardy. Across the country, defendants who have not been convicted of a crime are put on “offender funded” payment plans for monitors that sometimes cost more than their bail. And unlike bail, they don’t get the payment back, even if they’re found innocent. Although a federal survey shows that nearly 40% of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to cover an emergency, companies and courts routinely threaten to lock up defendants if they fall behind on payment.
Here in Florida I have noted quite a few different costs that are assigned to the monitor program. I am on it as well. I also found out after I was released from prison (and no, the “system” didn’t tell me about it) was that if you are on food stamps here in Florida, the probation will waive the cost of the monitoring fee. In the county I live in, it is roughly five dollars per day, or about $150 per month. I don’t have the statute handy, but I know more than a dozen people who have taken advantage of this situation. I would encourage anyone on food stamps and wears a monitor to check it out. The down side is you don’t get your money back for what you have already paid.
I have a good friend who spent five years as a sheriff’s deputy working in the county jail. He finally had to resign as he came to the conclusion that half the people he worked with belonged behind the same bars they were holding others behind. Having the authority to restrain someone is an awesome authority and many just are not equipped to handle it. No one should be locked up like an animal unless that is the absolute only solution. There are many other ways to get someone to correct their actions without destroying their potential for life. While I was incarcerated my daughter missed out on an opportunity to go to college, had a beautiful girl out of wedlock, and now even with my help is struggling to get by. I bet she could offer some ways to have better handled our situation. I’ve had to, with much difficulty, forgive several people who were not only serving ‘society’ but themselves.
What is sad, I have known people who sat in jail for over a year and gone to trial and been found not guilty but they were never reimbursed for losing a year of their lives and possibly losing their homes.
You might say what does that have to do with anything? Well if you truly are 100% innocent, you lose everything while locked up depending on how long you are there and lose your job and home.
If you do get out, you lose the bond $ regardless if you are innocent unless you have enough to pay a cash bond.
You are paying this monitoring company as well. There should be a law that if you are found not guilty with no doubt you did not do what you were accused of, you are reimbursed for all the lawyers fees, penalties etc.
Some say that isn’t fair to the courts but they sure want us to pay for things our taxes pay for. Taxes pay for probation officers but when you are on probation, guess what, you have to pay a monthly fee for being on probation.
I could ramble forever but you already know all this.
Prisons and jails are a for profit business. How do I know this, I use to work in Law enforcement. In most officers and courts minds, everyone arrested is guilty and a scum bag. One reason I left the force, these people who are arrested , even if they are guilty still deserve to be treated fairly and humanely . My parents volunteer in the prison systems as chaplains and they tell me stories that make my skin crawl of how some prisoners are treated.
I have friends who work in the innocence project and they always say each case is an uphill battle because no matter how obvious the not guilty evidence is, the courts do not want to admit they made a mistake and really do not care whose lives they destroy. Case in point the ex- felons ( The man still calls them felons ) voting act. Now they added on the ” you must pay to play”. So you are telling me these people have been released for decades and no one tried getting payment from them but now it is a priority?
Ok I am done preaching to the choir
I wore a monitor or 16 months at $13 a day, so $6,260. All pre-trial and before minimum wage went UP to $7.25, so about 3 hours out of every work day went straight to my monitor. The $390 I spent every month was more than the rent for my efficiency apartment.
And don’t forget the $2 weekly payment processing fee! $398 out the door.
I was in jail with a guy who had the SCRAM monitor before he was sentenced. He did the math and bought a 1/3 of a SCRAM franchise to make sure he’d be taken care of in 12 years when he got out!
cont: He has a fiancee and 1-year-old daughter to support. He must pay rent, etc. etc. It is like they are determined to see him fail. The harder he tries the harder they push and the harsher the sentence. His alcoholism is his major issue. It was successfully addressed with the proof being his not drinking! They keep pulling him in for hearings, making him miss work. If he cannot pay rent, his family will be homeless. He cannot be on CC if he is homeless. Putting him on SO probation with its many restrictions is like treating a brain tumor by cutting off a foot. Allowing a probation officer to create all this havoc is like having a dry cleaner telling the judge to cut off the foot. It is insane and people of limited means are helpless against the system.
When I was on monitoring it was costing me $360 a month…which after a few years was proven to be an over charge that Florida DOC kept secret until they were caught.
My son recently got drunk and got into some trouble with the law. He is an alcoholic. He was made to wear an ankle monitor for alcohol at $10.00 a day. It worked! He has not had a drink since wearing it. At his hearing, he was given 6 months of community control, 2 years probation. He has to pay for probation and a GPS monitor. He has finally started to go to NA, has not had a drink with the added consequences of the ankle monitor and is working very hard at staying sober, working his job, and being a wonderful father to his 1-year-old daughter. I am very proud of him. Then his CC probation officer says “hmmm he has a SO history, the judge probably meant to put him on SO probation, not regular probation” so back to court they go. Now they want to change his probation, he would have to go to SO counseling which would be another at least $25 a week and would replace the NA meeting, which is what he really needs. At the hearing to increase his probation, his PD showed why they could not do this without cause. The prosecution was not prepared to answer the legal opposition, so the judge gave the prosecution another week to come up with an argument. So his total fines would be more than $10.00 a week more than he earns at his job. He has a fiancee and 1 year old daughter to support.