THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606020313
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CINDY CLAYTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 124 lines
On the night of May 17, prominent Norfolk psychiatrist Tobin Jones slipped out of the electronic leg bracelets that were supposed to alert authorities any time he left his home on Longwood Drive.
The system did not work as designed, however, and police didn't catch up with Jones until the next morning. He was mowing the lawn at the Delaware Avenue home he once shared with his wife, Megan. The officers planned to take him back to jail for escaping from house arrest.
But they made a grisly discovery: A woman's body was in the house. Jones became a murder suspect the next day and is now being held without bond, charged in his wife's death.
When Jones thwarted the monitors, it was only the second time it has happened in the 10 years Norfolk has used the system to keep track of more than 500 prisoners at home.
Jones made his escape, he testified in court Friday, by cutting the bracelets - one on each ankle - with scissors. Jail officials said Jones also disabled a phone line that was supposed to report the breach. They would not elaborate because of security reasons.
The only other Norfolk prisoner to escape from a home monitoring device was a woman who lost weight after a pregnancy and wriggled free of an electronic ankle bracelet in 1994.
And there have been failures elsewhere. A Buffalo, N.Y., man ran a drug ring from his home while on house arrest. New Jersey temporarily suspended its program when a man escaped from house arrest and shot an acquaintance to death.
But for the most part, the devices have been successful, authorities say. Officials for the U.S. Probation Office say it is nearly foolproof. And no other failures have been reported by the cities that use the devices in South Hampton Roads, which include all cities except Suffolk.
As prisons and jails have become more and more crowded, and as the cost of housing inmates has risen, law enforcement offices have turned to the monitors as a cheap alternative.
The monitoring program ``certainly does help alleviate overcrowding, but that's not the mission,'' said David Botkins, director of communications for the Department of Corrections.
``Home electronic monitoring is a strict curfew system for high-risk offenders where they can still work, go to treatment, see the probation officer and live a normal life,'' he said.
The devices are suitable for only certain types of prisoners. Jones, for instance, had been viewed as a good prospect - even though he had been charged with breaking and entering, trespassing and stalking an acquaintance.
``He was a perfect candidate for the program. He didn't have a record. He was a doctor,'' said Michael P. O'Toole, who heads up Norfolk's house-arrest program.
The devices - anklets or bracelets that contain transmitters and weigh about 5 ounces - monitor nonviolent first-time offenders, parolees and youths in juvenile detention. Those on monitoring are chosen for the system because they pose no threat to themselves or others, O'Toole said.
Norfolk has 50 of the devices and monitors 35 adults and 15 youths at a time. Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Chesapeake have the capability to monitor 10 adults at a time.
Some who are monitored are allowed to leave their homes for work and other activities, but must report home to check in with the computer. Those not allowed to leave must stay inside, or alarms will sound, alerting law enforcement officials.
A monitoring system was first used in 1983 in New Mexico by a judge who got the idea from a ``Spiderman'' comic strip. By 1993, the last year for which figures were available, at least 21 states used the electronic systems and monitored about 2,500 people, according to the National Institute of Justice.
At the state level, Botkins said, monitoring is sometimes a condition of parole. On any given day, about 150 people must check in with parole officers, attend treatment programs for drug and alcohol abuse or conform to a schedule set up by the Department of Corrections.
Since Norfolk began using monitoring, it has placed 536 people on the program, O'Toole said.
``It's really tough to beat the system,'' he said. ``We've seen from the computer system we have that it pretty much catches people as soon as they step out.''
O'Toole said Norfolk pioneered electronic monitoring in Hampton Roads, and was the fifth locality in the country use the system. Virginia Beach became the ninth locality in the state and the second city in Hampton Roads to use electronic monitoring in 1991, said Maj. William Mann, commanding officer of corrections.
At the Beach, electronic monitoring equipment includes still cameras that require a prisoner to be photographed at specified check-in times. The pictures are transmitted to the host computer like a fax so sheriff's deputies can keep track of the prisoner. A prisoner may also be required to blow into a Breathalyzer that transmits the results to the host computer in the same manner.
Mann said that although a few prisoners had tampered with the bracelets and computers, Virginia Beach has never had an escape.
Likewise, no one has escaped electronic monitoring in Chesapeake, which has had its program for five years. Portsmouth has the newest program, which began last month. One person is now being monitored at home.
``This is kind of a new thing for us and we're just learning about it,'' said Lt. Elizabeth Aronson of the Portsmouth Sheriff's Department.
According to former Florida Governor Bob Martinez, the future in house arrest may be in the stars. In 1995, a company in which Martinez and his son, Alan, are partners pitched the idea of satellite tracking to Florida's Department of Corrections.
The system would operate with orbiting satellites and electronic ankle bracelets that would track the whereabouts of some prisoners. A deputy or other corrections official could literally look at a grid and watch a person walk down the street.
Last year, some prisoners in Chicago were placed in a house-arrest program that uses an automated voice-identification system called SpeakerID.
The system works by creating a ``voice print'' by having the inmate speak into the phone then storing the print in a computer database. A computer program then automatically calls the inmate. If the computer cannot verify the inmate's voice or no one answers the phone, authorities are called.
Last year, about 300 inmates were monitored by SpeakerID by county law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. The system was being studied elsewhere.
Regardless of how high-tech the programs are, O'Toole said, corrections officials must constantly keep in touch with prisoners.
``You just don't put them (prisoners) on the equipment and forget about them,'' O'Toole said. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
JOHN CORBITT/The Virginian-Pilot
HOW HOUSE ARREST DEVICES WORK
SOURCE: Staff research
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MURDER STRANGULATION ARREST
TRIAL HOUSE ARREST ELECTRONIC MONITORING DEVICES by CNB