ELECTRONIC EYES, EFFICIENT OVERSIGHT

High-Tech Monitors Aid Probation Officers

Find yourself on probation, and you might be accessorized with an
electronic ankle bracelet that transmits a signal to a remote computer.

If you leave home against orders, an alert goes to a Springfield
monitoring center -- or to Boston if it's after business hours -- and
a message is relayed to your probation officer. There is a good
chance that the officer will seek a warrant for your arrest.

The ankle bracelet has been around since April 2001. But the modern
world of tracking those who have strayed from law and order has more
electronic gadgetry to boost supervision.

The bracelet is compatible with the Bi HomeGuard 200 Drive-Bi, a
newer wandlike device carried by the probation officer. It works with
a special antenna attached to the driver's car.

Outside of the local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a job site, a bar
or other location where you are -- or aren't -- supposed to be, the
wand can be programmed with the serial number on the bracelet. With a
wave out the car window, the wand can pick up a signal confirming
your whereabouts within about 1,500 feet.

And if you have probation orders for an alcohol-related conviction,
you might find a Sobrietor hooked up in the privacy of your own home.
At the sound of a loud blast, delivered through a phone line, you
must blow into a Breathalyzer.

The results are zipped off to the computerized monitoring system,
which records a failure to blow or a positive alcohol reading. The
results are sent to a probation officer.

The system operates on voice recognition and other sensors, so your
sober brother can't do the job.

Legislation passed in October now allows for installation of
"interlock" devices installed in cars.

If a driver fails a Breathalyzer test on equipment installed in his
or her car, the car won't start. The device is typically geared to
OUI offenders who receive "hardship licenses" with limited driving permission.

Global Positioning Systems are now required of serious sex offenders;
as of last week, 85 throughout the state were outfitted the devices,
according to a state probation official.

Electronic monitoring, say probation officers, is a less costly
alternative to jail for high-risk offenders, and it has boosted
probation officers' ability to keep track of their clients.

"It's helped us in terms of accountability and gives people a chance
at being successful on probation, instead of sending them to jail,"
said Michael Urquhart, chief probation officer for Northern Berkshire
District Court.

It's not a foolproof system, however. One probationer cut his
bracelet and disappeared; a warrant is out for his arrest.

The Northern Berkshire District Court has one person wearing an
electronic bracelet and using a Sobrietor. The number was slightly
higher a week or so earlier, Urquhart said.

Electronic monitoring figures for Central Berkshire District Court
were not provided to The Eagle last week.

Alfred E. Barbalunga, chief probation officer in Southern Berkshire
District Court, said last week that four probationers are wearing
ankle bracelets, one home Breathalyzer is in use, and probation
officers regularly use the DriveBi wand outside bars and AA meetings.

In one instance, probation officers went to Housatonic to seek out a
woman who had failed to respond to a Sobrietor alert in her home. The
woman was found dead in her home, apparently of natural causes,
Barbalunga said.

"So we can also use these as well-being checks," he said. "That one
was pretty upsetting."

State figures show 60,000 people on probation in the state, but only
600 electronic monitoring devices are currently in use, said Paul
Lucci, state deputy commissioner of probation in charge of the
monitoring program. He said about 800 devices are available on request.

The GPS, which can track the detailed movements of a person if he is
walking, driving or at home, are only used by Level III sex offenders, he said.

Clifford J. Nilan, chief probation officer for Berkshire Superior
Court, said that one client awaiting trial on a rape

charge was required to use a GPS but "got fed up with it," cut the
device and ended up in jail.

He said three or four other probationers in his office wear bracelets.

The systems aren't foolproof.

Tracy Siok, 24, spoke of her experience with the monitoring bracelet
while she was addicted to heroin. For her, the system not only was
not foolproof, but it also did not help with her drug addiction.

Siok, now living in Pittsfield, was convicted in 2004 for possession
of heroin and a hypodermic syringe. Her offense occurred in Lee, and
she was placed on probation in Southern Berkshire District Court.

But she was still hooked, and when she violated her probation by
using drugs, the judge ordered an ankle bracelet to keep her off the street.

She was allowed out for certain obligations, such as Narcotics
Anonymous meetings, but she had a strict curfew. She could still get
high, however, because people could come to her house bearing drugs.

"At first, the bracelet worked, but then I started straying from the
path," she said. "I ended up going back out."

She was ordered into a halfway house, but the bracelet was ordered
again after she broke her probation rules. Finally, in January, she
was sent to jail for four months, she said.

It was then that she appreciated even the limited freedom the
bracelet had given her.

She said that since she has been out of jail, she is doing well,
following her probation rules.

Judge Alfred A. Barbalunga, chief justice of the Central Berkshire
District Court, said the monitoring systems can seem overbearing but
have been helpful.

"I am a little suspect of too much intrusion by the government, but
if circumstances warrant it, and if a person is a second-class
citizen because of a crime, the alternative is often jail," he said.

He cited a 90-day sentence he gave a man in an assault and battery
case. The man was a stay-at-home dad, the primary caretaker for the
family's children.

"We didn't want to destroy the family, so we put him on 24/7 house
arrest," said the judge. "The wife pleaded for this. They had three
kids, and he was a good father."

Lucci, the state probation deputy, said the cost of incarceration has
been estimated at $30,000 to $40,000 per year. The cost of electronic
monitoring is about "$1,500 per body," he said.

Since 2001, he said, 7,200 individuals have been electronically
monitored -- including 120 GPS users -- and of those, 610 were faced
with arrest warrants for failing to comply. The GPS is the most
costly, at $10 per day per person monitored.

He noted that the actual monitoring systems in Springfield and Boston
are staffed by real people, who track hundreds of people every day.

Lucci said the systems in place are nice to have, but they should not
give false hope.

"We can't always guarantee public safety," he said.

Barbalunga, of the Southern Berkshire Court, said the electronic
systems can involve a "crazy" ream of paperwork. And the probation
officers have had to be trained in installing Sobrietors and ankle
bracelet systems.

"It's a bit of a production," he said. "It's brought more work, but
helped with enforcing court orders and enhancing public safety."