With an Ingham County Jail post closing because of budget cuts, electronic monitoring is becoming more utilized in the county and surrounding districts, Maatman said.

In 2009, 255 residents in Ingham, Clinton, Livingston and Jackson counties were under electronic monitoring through a company called Sentinel Offender Services. Missy Macias, a case manager with Sentinel Offender Services, said 56 more residents have been monitored this year. The bands can be equipped with a GPS to keep the suspect on house arrest, or can be SCRAM-Bands, which measure a person’s blood alcohol level.

Suspects who have served more than 50 percent of their prison sentence, or have committed a non-violent crime, are eligible for electronic monitoring, though it is not offered to those who have committed a felony, Macias said.

East Lansing police Capt. Kim Johnson said although inmates are now released into the public with the bands, public safety is not affected.

“We have no experience with any people in tether systems committing other crimes in East Lansing,” Johnson said.

Macias said there is a tracking system notifying Sentinel when a person wearing a tether has left their assigned area. Once notified a criminal has left the approved zone, police are called.

Although being able to serve a sentence in the comfort of one’s home might seem preferable to a jail cell, the tether can be equally unpleasant, East Lansing-based attorney, Mike Nichols, said.

“You have to check in frequently. It will ring sporadically, almost indiscriminately, and you have to pay for it,” Nichols said.

The cost for electronic monitoring is about $10-12 per night compared to $50 a night for prison, Macias said. The monitoring can save costs when an inmate has a health condition.

“We had a gentleman who had a kidney failure and was having to go to dialysis three times a week,” Macias said. “The county was paying for dialysis because he was considered an inmate, and had an officer there 24 hours a day.”

Nichols said although the tethers are a viable option, there are kinks to work out. One of his defendants recently had his or her SCRAM-Band report an incorrect reading of the person’s blood alcohol level, he said.

New technology is being developed that is expected to be more accurate, Macias said.

Another advantage with the band is its ability to allow those charged or sentenced with a crime to continue working or taking care of a dependant family member while serving their time, Macias said.

“If they were sentenced a fine but no jail time, but spent four months in jail after their pre-trail, they might have lost their job, their family, their home,” Macias said. “That causes more problems to people sentenced for paying a fine. They get into more trouble, more jail time. It keeps the vicious cycle going on.”