FLORIDA Crimes show risk of house arrest

Some have committed crimes during authorized time away from home.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- Local cops in Florida thought they had Fred Carswell on a pretty tight leash. Freed while awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge, Carswell wore an electronic ankle bracelet programmed to alert authorities whenever he left his house.
But when the Drug Enforcement Administration nabbed a Hollywood, Fla., drug ring early this month, one of those arrested -- the alleged "mastermind" -- was none other than Fred Carswell. Agents said he was cooking and distributing crack cocaine in his grandmother's kitchen. "Yes, he was on a monitor," Sandra Estenoz, Carswell's case manager, said at a bond hearing in Miami after his arrest. "Did I know he was out selling crack? No. I had no idea."
His arrest underscored -- and not for the first time -- the weaknesses in electronic monitors used to track defendants on house arrest.
UA Palm Beach County, Fla., woman on her fourth conviction for driving under the influence was fitted with an ankle bracelet in 1998. Under terms of her house arrest, she could attend a Thursday culinary class. One week, she skipped class, went to a bar and then drove over a man.
UA year later, Palm Beach County prosecutors accused a teenager of circumventing his monitor long enough to steal a neighbor's car and run over his girlfriend, killing her. He was acquitted, but the house-arrest system came under fire.
ULast year, the Miami-Dade, Fla., Corrections Department began investigating how a man wearing a court-ordered ankle transmitter ended up charged with trying to kill a Homestead, Fla., police officer.
UThree months ago, a federal judge in Texas ordered monitor manufacturer BI Inc. to pay $191,400 to the family of a woman who was killed by an ex-boyfriend who cut his ankle bracelet. The company was found 20 percent responsible for the death, according to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
How bracelets work
The bracelets, about the size of large beepers, attach to the ankle. Using a weak, low-powered radio signal -- like a TV remote -- they transmit signals to a receiver connected to the phone. The ankle bracelets send a signal whenever someone leaves home, although sometimes the wearer is allowed free rein for a prescribed daily period to go to work.
Carswell had one such window of freedom between 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m., allowing him to work in his family's deli. Instead, authorities allege, he headed to his grandmother's kitchen to cook up crack cocaine. He is accused of selling the crack as part of a gang that included Timothy Brown, a Hollywood convict freed after a decade in prison when a federal judge found that he most likely didn't murder a Broward, Fla., sheriff's deputy.
The Broward Sheriff's Office, which typically has 250 people free on electronic monitors, says they are a less expensive way of keeping tabs on small-time offenders as they await trial. BSO says its monitors cost $3 a day, a relative bargain compared to the $78 per day cost of incarcerating someone. The sheriff's office says fewer than 5 percent of people wearing its ankle bracelets get caught committing crimes while awaiting trial. But opportunities for abuse are many.
Even while confined to his or her own house, a person could, theoretically, be selling drugs, plotting robberies or committing an assault. "It is not bars. It is not incarceration. So there are going to be those who try to defeat the system," said Monica Hook, communications director for Boulder, Colo.-based BI Inc., the maker of BSO's monitors.
Time outside home
During authorized time away from the home -- to work or visit a doctor -- the wearer of the ankle bracelet could be anywhere. Carswell was working for the family business, Poochello's Seafood Deli in Hollywood, which may have left him more free to come and go than a typical employee. His job took him out of the restaurant to make deliveries and get supplies.
Some people fitted with the ankle bracelets simply lop them off. The bracelets are made of molded plastic and rubber. In the case of the Palm Beach County teen who ran over his girlfriend, it is alleged that he tampered with the bracelet eight times, apparently taking it on and off as if it were a loafer.
Anyone who snips off the bracelet usually has a long head start on deputies. The monitoring company gets an alert in Indiana and contacts BSO's detention unit, which then contacts pretrial services. Authorities must get a signed warrant from a judge before sending law-enforcement officers after the absconder.