Recidivism for DUI Offenders Who

¶ … Recidivism for DUI offenders who are electronically monitored lower than for those that are not electronically monitored?

Sentencing of those that commit crimes while they are impaired by alcohol varies greatly. While it would appear that all individuals should be sentenced in basically the same manner based on their prior convictions, blood alcohol content, and the type of defense that they have, it seems as though many are also being sentenced based on criteria that should be irrelevant for conviction, such as race. This has become a serious problem for many minority individuals, since many who have been sentenced are insisting that the guidelines under which they have been sentenced are unfair.

Literature on this subject, which will be reviewed in Chapter Two, appears to indicate that some disparity may exist, and this is worrying for minority individuals, due to the fact that they are aware that, if they are arrested for DUI crimes, they will be likely to be punished more severely than those that are of the Caucasian race. The review of the literature will provide insight into this issue, and will likely shed light on whether this is an accurate assumption and whether there is anything that can be done to correct sentencing disparities if they do exist in the court system.

Electronic monitoring of these individuals is often thought to play a role in recidivism rates, and that issue will be explored within the context of sentencing guidelines and other related issues. Unfortunately, there is little literature specifically dealing with sentencing disparity based on DUI crimes. This is unfortunate, but clearly shows the need for more studies. It is unfortunate for the understanding of DUI crimes sentencing disparity when it comes to race and other factors that there is not more literature on the specific subject.

Is Recidivism for DUI offenders who are electronically monitored lower than for those that are not electronically monitored?

Introduction

Statement of the Problem and Hypotheses

Race is not the only issue that is involved with sentencing disparity, however, but it is one of the larger ones. This study will seek to explore all of the issues that are involved in disparity in sentencing, and will not concern itself solely with race. However, since race appears to be one of the largest factors, its importance in the study and the literature review will be evident. The following hypotheses apply to this study:

Individuals that are of minority origin will be subjected to stricter punishment due to sentencing disparities in DUI crime laws.

Regardless of race, there are many variations in sentencing for DUI crimes which would indicate a strong disparity in sentencing.

Individuals, regardless of race, that are electronically monitored have a lower recidivism rate than those that are not electronically monitored.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to show that there is great disparity in sentencing guidelines for DUI crimes and that the recidivism rate is affected by electronic monitoring. Human beings are naturally biased and they have their own opinions. It is much more difficult for someone to quell these opinions and make a decision clearly and completely objectively than it is for that same individual to choose what feels right to him or her, but those that hand down sentences are asked to ensure that they do not sentence based on issues that individuals cannot control, such as race, age, or gender.

The disparity that is seen in sentencing guidelines is troubling to the fact that individuals who allow this to happen continue to get away with it and no one has put a stop to it as of yet. This becomes a concern because it indicates a lack of willingness on the part of many individuals in the criminal justice system to attempt to stop this problem or change things so that there is not so much disparity in the sentencing of individuals for various crimes. Not working to change this indicates that these individuals do not care whether individuals are being mistreated by the system or not and shows a lack of regard for fellow human beings which is upsetting to many who witness it.

There are other factors as well, such as the type of defense that an individual has, their age, and whether they have had any prior convictions that also affects how they are sentenced. Some of this disparity makes sense, since someone with several prior convictions likely should receive a punishment that is stronger than someone who is on his or her first offense. However, even though some disparity in sentencing can be explained away, much of it cannot, and this is what is found to be so troubling.

Importance of the Study

The study is very important based on two reasons. First of all, it is important that all human beings be treated equally where sentencing guidelines are concerned for DUI crimes. Secondly, it is important due to the fact that there have been very few studies on this particular issue and more need to be done. An examination of the literature reveals studies that deal primarily with crimes in general or with drug crimes, and no studies that deal specifically with DUI or the electronic monitoring thereof. DUI is mentioned in various studies as being one of the crimes that have been studied for sentencing disparity, recidivism, and racial profiling, but there are no specific studies dealing just with DUI crimes and race or other factors in regards to the disparity of sentencing and the guidelines that judges must go by.

Scope of the Study

The scope of the study will deal with convictions of DUI crimes in the state of Alabama from 1994 to the present. For the research conducted after the review of the literature, the dependent variables will be prison, probation, and number of years sentenced. The independent variables will be blood-alcohol content, type of defense, race, age, prior DUI convictions, and the number of prior DUI convictions. Studying something this specific may be somewhat difficult based on the lack of previous studies into this issue.

Rationale of the Study

The rationale behind the study is very simple. Individuals of minority race have been treated improperly in sentencing guidelines in this country for quite some time, or so statistics and research appears to indicate. The rationale for this study is to show that this is in fact the case and that DUI crimes convictions also fall into this concern over racial disparity and sentencing guidelines which are harsh on some and allow others more leniency in sentencing, as well as to show how electronic monitoring of DUI-convicted individuals affects their recidivism rate.

Literature Review

Over the last decade, the electronic monitoring of criminals has become increasingly popular as communities strive to find ways to protect the public amid budgetary constraints and prison overcrowding (Coker, 2003). As with any relatively new technology, there are both good and bad points to electronic monitoring. While electronic monitoring of criminals using wristbands, necklaces, and anklets does help to keep down the overcrowding in prisons and the cost of housing criminals, the technology does not always work as planned. The biggest problem with monitoring a probationer or parolee electronically is that the technology will only tell the police if the monitored individual is home. It will not tell the police where the individual is if they are not at home (Under, 2001).

When a monitored individual is not at home, there is no way for the police to determine where they are by using the technology they have available. Although most of the people who are placed under electronic monitoring or a form of "house arrest" don't try to escape, a very small percentage do, and they have to be tracked using normal police procedures (Coker, 2003). The process of finding an individual who is on the run would be much easier if it could be done using the device that they are already wearing. Even without convicted offenders attempting to escape, the monitoring device still does not give police all they need to know about the wearer.

For example, monitoring doesn't work like standard house arrest. The wearer of the monitoring device often goes to work, the grocery store, the movies, or anywhere they want. The device tells police when the wearer leaves the house, and when they return home. Obviously, there are set hours that the wearer is expected to be at home, but if they work a 9 to 5 job and leave the house at the normal time, there is no way to know where they are by using the device until after 5 in the evening. By that time, they could have gone almost anywhere, including leaving town, the state, or even possibly the country (Benner, 2002).

Newer and better technology is becoming available that can pinpoint someone's location to within a few feet by using a global positioning system (GPS) satellite. While this is impressive from a technological standpoint, it is not practical or cost effective to use for most people out on probation or parole. Since GPS tracking costs around $300 plus a monthly service fee that is similar in price to a pager or cellular phone, it would be very expensive to outfit everyone requiring electronic monitoring with a tracking device (Under, 2001).

As has been mentioned, the main problem with electronic monitoring is the fact that it can only do so much. it's really very limited in what it can tell the police. Either the offender is home, or they are not. Beyond that, the monitoring device is not of much help to law enforcement. This causes a major impact on society. it's good to know that a criminal is safely behind bars where they cannot leave, even if they wanted to. It brings security and peace of mind to the community, and especially to people that may have been past victims of crime.

With electronic monitoring, there is nothing stopping the criminal from leaving his home. A signal from his monitoring device will alert law enforcement if the monitored individual decides to attempt an escape, but this does not stop him from escaping, at least temporarily. Most offenders who attempt to escape while being electronically monitored will end up back in jail when they are captured, but this does not help the people in the community that the offender may come in contact with during his brief attempt at freedom.

During the time the offender is supposed to be away from home, at work for example, he's basically a free man. He's out in the community and can go where he likes. Not having the ability to tell where the offender is, and not knowing for certain that he's going to come back at the appointed time put law enforcement officers in a bind. There is no way to watch the offender 24 hours a day unless he stays in jail, and no way to make sure he goes where he's supposed to. On top of that consideration, there is always the possibility of tampering with the device.

Although law enforcement feels that the devices are tamper-proof, there are always criminals who will try to destroy the device, or find a way to keep it from going off when it leaves the house at an unexpected time. Maybe they will find some way to get the device loose, and then they can leave the house and no one will know until they are long gone, because the device will still be there, sending out its signal that the offender is still in the house. While this is not a common or expected occurrence, there is a certain lack of safety and security that comes with having a criminal under 'house arrest' in the neighborhood, instead of in jail where he is watched all of the time (Bowman, 1996).

What it all boils down to is this: the jails are overcrowded, and keeping prisoners under lock and key is expensive. There are safety risks and technological glitches that arise when someone is 'turned loose' and put under electronic monitoring. They are attached to the law only by the signals from their device and the telephone, and many of them leave the house for accepted reasons during the day, producing the risk of them not returning when they are expected to.

Research into new and better ways of electronic monitoring is ongoing, and may work to help provide some answers to the dilemma that surrounds electronic monitoring of probationers and parolees, most of which are not hard-core criminals, meaning murders, rapists, and violent offenders.

When electronic monitoring first appeared as an option for criminals, it was in response to an apparent interest across the country to 'get tough on crime'. Unfortunately, getting tough seemed to mean building more jails and putting more people behind bars, not allowing them to stay at home and watch TV all day and wear a bracelet. Getting tough did not include strapping an anklet to someone and allowing them to go to work and the grocery store and the movies like everybody else (Carbado, 2002). It was not expected to be all right for the criminal to walk the streets as long as they were home by the right time, so the signals from their monitoring device could go through the phone line and tell local law enforcement that they were home.

According to one article, some prison systems across the country refuse to use the monitoring devices at all, and the ones that do use them sparingly. There are also states that are considering whether to continue the monitoring programs that they have in place. The lack of tracking ability is one of the reasons that the devices aren't doing as well as expected. Along with that concern, and the concern for the safety of the community, comes the realization that building prisons means creating jobs for people in the area. Even though people say that they don't want to live near a prison, they keep building more, and electronic monitoring is not growing at anywhere near the rate it was originally expected to (Vogelstein, 1997).

Transmitters and monitoring devices have come a long way since they first got started, despite the luke-warm reception from law enforcement. The first transmitters were big bulky items, and they weren't even waterproof. Now they are about the size of a pack of cigarettes, waterproof, and quite difficult to remove. Still, there is the concern of offenders walking the streets. In 1992 a New Jersey man wearing a monitoring device killed another man. This resulted in the suspension of New Jersey's electronic monitoring program until 1996 (Vogelstein, 1997). Instances like that one do not help an industry that is already struggling with safety and security objections from the public (Berk & Campbell, 1993).

In strict opposition to the above information, an article written for American Behavioral Scientist just one year before the Vogelstein article came out states that electronic monitoring is becoming extremely popular, and is one of the most popular sanctions currently used in the United States (Elrod & Brown, 1996).

While this is obviously a conflicting viewpoint, the article presents evidence for electronic monitoring in the results from a survey taken in a county in New York. It also discusses the reasons that electronic monitoring is becoming so very popular among law enforcement officers. The reasons brought to light in the article are mostly the ones already discussed, including financial difficulties, prison overcrowding and the like. Elrod makes another point, however, that has not yet been mentioned. Rehabilitation. Elrod's pervading argument is that an offender allowed to go out into the community and make positive ties with other individuals will have a better chance at rehabilitation that someone who was locked up in prison, with only other prisoners and guards for company (1996).

While it is true that offenders locked up in prison tend to develop a 'prison mentality' and sometimes have trouble when they are released back into the community, Elrod presents no real evidence that electronic monitoring works to rehabilitate offenders. He does also point out that electronic monitoring is better than 'traditional' probation or parole, in that traditional methods only require the offender to check in with law enforcement on a set basis (usually weekly) (Elrod, et.al. 1996). This being the case, electronic monitoring keeps a closer eye on the offender than traditional methods. However, it still allows the offender to have the freedom to make ties in the community and lead a reasonably normal life, the alternative to which would be returning to prison to carry out a sentence.

According to Elrod, how the public feels about electronic monitoring has been largely ignored. The study he performed took into account the seriousness of the crime as well as other factors, and looked at whether people would support a particular type of offender being turned loose in the community under electronic monitoring instead of being jailed. The findings of the study were that many people believe crime will not be reduced simply be putting more criminals in jail (1997).

Another finding of the study was that people felt electronic monitoring should work to rehabilitate offenders, and keep minor offenders from turning into major ones. The main concern of the public surveyed was that putting someone in jail often leads to a life of crime, since many criminals who have been in jail a long time get so used to prison that they don't do very well when they are released into society. People in Elrod's study seemed more interested in rehabilitating major offenders by using less punishment and favored harsher punishment for smaller offenders. Elrod's opinion of this was that the people surveyed did not want to let small offenses turn into larger ones in the future, and therefore favored stronger punishment, in an attempt to convince criminals not to do it again (1997).

The study also found that only 15% of the survey participants favored allowing dangerous, hardened criminals to walk the streets while being electronically monitored. Most felt those kind of criminals belonged in jail, and that the less dangerous, minor offenders were the ones who should be allowed the freedoms and benefits of electronic monitoring. Resources in the prison system are somewhat limited. There are budgets and buildings that are filled to capacity. Survey respondents seemed most interested in keeping small-time first offenders out of jail. They indicated that they were willing to take responsibility in their own communities to help rehabilitate electronically monitored offenders. Most participants appeared to realize that most criminals are eventually released back into the local community and will need to be rehabilitated if they hope to stay out of the correctional system in the future (Elrod, '1997).

According to Elrod, the jailing of offenders as the only 'get tough' policy on crime has been overstated by people in the criminal justice system, and by politicians. Some communities seem to have a great deal of support for the attempted rehabilitation of offenders through electronic monitoring. According to Elrod's understanding of the issue, most people in the community are not aware of what is really involved in electronic monitoring vs. standard probation and parole vs. jail time. When the nuances are explained to them and they have a fuller understanding of the problem, they will make the choice to use electronic monitoring on the less dangerous criminals in the hopes of rehabilitating them and creating more useful members of the community (1997).

Joseph Papy looks at electronic monitoring in a different light. He focuses not so much on what the public thinks of electronic monitoring, but what the law enforcement officers who deal with it every day think about it. There are apparently many problems and challenges that law enforcement must face when they deal with the electronic monitoring of offenders. These include: the selection and placement of the offender, the monitoring periods, the fees associated with supervision, what to do about violations, and what the standards are for contact (1994).

On top of these issues, there are the problems with phone lines that can hinder attempts to determine whether the offender is where he is supposed to be when he is supposed to be there. The cost of the equipment that must be worn and installed in the offender's home must also be considered. Often, however, the offender pays a certain amount per day to have his monitored freedom instead of a jail cell, and this pays for the cost of the equipment and technology required to monitor him (Papy, 1994).

Correctional agencies vary greatly in their decisions as to who should be placed on electronic monitoring. Some only monitor felony offenders, some only misdemeanors, and some only pre-trial offenders. A few agencies have chosen to add drug offenders and sex offenders to their list of people they will electronically monitor, and domestic violence cases are also being considered for this type of intensive supervision. In the case of domestic violence, both the offender and the victim have receivers in their homes. If the offender violates curfew, the victim will be notified, which is a good way for the victim to keep herself (or himself, in some cases) safe (Papy 1994).

Law enforcement also has to make a decision about the length of time an offender should be monitored. How long should an offender go without a violation before electronic monitoring is removed? If it's removed, should there be regular supervision (i.e. standard probation or parole) or is the offender a 'free man' after that? There are also differences of opinion about supervision fees. Some law enforcement agencies believe that the offender should pay the entire cost of monitoring. Others believe that only a co-payment is necessary. Either way, it's something more that law enforcement has to decide on (Papy 1994).

The standards of contact are also very high for someone in an electronic monitoring program. Unscheduled, frequent visits to the offender's home, work, or anywhere else they spend a lot of time are necessary, and this requires more work on the part of the officers than standard probation or parole would. The last matter for law enforcement to consider is what to do about violations. Some recommend immediate imprisonment, but others feel that is too harsh for a first violation. Because of the problems with telephone lines not always doing what they are supposed to there usually has to be evidence of a violation other than the electronic report (Papy, 1994).

Even with all of the articles that say that electronic monitoring is doing very well, there are many who still insist it is overrated. In a 1990 article, criminologists Bonnie Berry and Roger Matthews state that while electronic monitoring could very likely become widely used, the need for most of it is not there. They point out that most of the people who are required to be electronically monitored would probably not have gone to prison anyway, so the monitoring is actually just something extra for law enforcement officers to do (Electronic, 1990).

Berry and Matthews argue that almost all of the candidates suggested for electronic monitoring are unsuitable, and the need for the actual monitoring is simply not there. The only concession they will give is that, used in conjunction with early release or work-release programs, electronic monitoring could be useful. The spread of AIDS in prisons could also be reduced, suggest Berry and Matthews, by keeping AIDS infected offenders confined to their homes instead of in the prison system where it could be spread to others.

Research Method

The sampling design chosen for this study is very important because it is believed to be the best one for this type of study. There are others that could have been utilized for this type of study, but the Surveys and Intensive Interviewing that will be used for this study will provide the best sample data from the individuals that will be studied.

Without designing a sample appropriately and without ensuring that the surveys and interviewing techniques are the best possible, the entire study could be considered invalid simply because of the sample that was collected and the way that the study was performed. To avoid this, the sample must be designed in such a way that it encompasses all of the issues that need to be addressed and all of the individuals who are intimately involved in the various parts of the problem at hand.

There are actually few ethical issues that need to be dealt with in this particular study. The use of Surveys should not cause any ethical dilemmas or problems for anyone that takes them, since the confidentiality of the surveys will be assured. The Intensive Interviewing, however, might cause some ethical problems for those that may not want to answer a particular question or may feel uncomfortable about the types of questions that are being asked of them. Due to this, it is important to prepare the interview questions carefully and assure those that are interviewed that they do not need to answer a particular question if they feel uncomfortable about it in any way. Also important is the idea that the interviewee can stop the interview at any time if they feel that the interview may be ethically dangerous to them.

The ethical issues that these individuals may be facing may not appear to be very significant to the researcher, but what goes on in people's minds is often hard to see, and that is why it is important to be sensitive about whether people want to answer specific questions during an interview. Ensuring these people that they do not have to answer questions that they are not comfortable with will make them more likely to answer the rest of the questions that they do feel comfortable with.

Data collection is one of the most important parts of the study, as the data must not only be collected properly but analyzed correctly as well so that the hypothesis can be either validated or invalidated. For this particular study, the Surveys and Intensive Interviewing that are used will provide all of the data that will be used in the analysis. Surveys and Intensive Interviewing were chosen because it was believed that these would be the best methods of obtaining the information necessary for the study. The literature collected in the literature review could be examined and conclusions could be drawn based on what other researchers had already done but this would not have provided any new information for the current study.