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House Arrest

To many, the term house arrest may invoke images of repressive political control and manipulation. However, within the criminal justice system the term refers to court-ordered confinement in one's own home and is viewed as an important alternative to standard incarceration at various stages of the criminal justice process. The order of house arrest comes from various parts of the criminal justice system, is employed by local, state, and federal agencies, and often entails very different requirements; thus, the term is somewhat ambiguous. There are several forms of house arrest, depending on where in the criminal justice system the house arrest is applied and the severity of the requirements of the court order; examples include curfew, home confinement or home detention, and home incarceration.

Curfew generally refers to restricting an offender to his or her home during specified times, usually during the evening and nighttime hours. Home confinement or home detention usually refers confinement of the offender to the home for most hours, with stated exceptions like school or work, religious services, medical or drug treatment, or food shopping. These exceptions are generally specified in advance and are relatively strictly enforced. Finally, home incarceration, perhaps the most severe form of house arrest, generally refers to cases in which the offender is required to remain in the home constantly, with relatively rare exceptions such as medical or court-ordered correctional treatment (e.g., drug abuse counseling). The latter two forms of house arrest are often accompanied by electronic surveillance via an electronic device placed on the offender's ankle, thus enabling his or her presence or absence from the home to be monitored very closely (see Electronic Monitoring). Each of these forms of house arrest can be used at almost any stage of the criminal justice system and are used for various purposes.

Applications

House arrest can be useful as a form of pretrial confinement for defendants who appear inappropriate candidates for being released on their own recognizance or who are unable to post bond. The primary goals of pretrial house arrest are to guarantee that the defendant shows up at trial, to insure public safety, to reduce jail overcrowding, and to reserve jail space for the most dangerous or untrustworthy defendants. One major advantage of the use of home confinement at this stage is that people not yet found guilty are not subjected to a serious form of punishment: incarceration with other possibly more serious offenders. Alternatively, house arrest can be described as a form of punishment, but one less punitive than incarceration in jail or prison. Because of this premise, house arrest should be used only for offenders who would normally not be let out on bail, or in cases where a very high bail is set but is reduced on the condition of house arrest. House arrest at this stage is also particularly useful for juveniles, who are often detained for relatively long periods of time prior to adjudication for relatively minor offenses, only to be released following adjudication and sentencing.

House arrest is also used as criminal sanction meted out by judges at sentencing. The purposes of house arrest at sentencing are to administer a reasonable punishment, protect public safety, reserve jail space for more serious offenders, reduce the potential criminogenic effects of incarceration, and help rehabilitate the offender. The basic goal in this case is to provide a cost-effective alternative to incarceration. House arrest may cover the entire length of incarceration, or only a part of a sentence. For instance, in some jurisdictions a sentence is broken down into three parts: an offender is incarcerated for a period of time, then allowed to participate in a work release program (see Work Release), and then graduated to home confinement. In general, there is agreement among both criminal justice professionals and the general public that house arrest is a reasonable sanction for certain low-risk offenders who seem likely to profit from not being exposed to other criminals and from maintaining employment and family ties. Research also suggests that offenders experience the sanction as a punishment, although less punitive than incarceration in jail or prison (Gainey and Payne 2000).

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