Discuss in detail the major criticisms of house arrest.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. The first criticism directed at house arrest is that it does not seem to be a punishment. Staying at home for most people is considered a luxury and not a negative experience. The courts recognize that home confinement is not the same as jail or prison confinement, and therefore time spent on home confinement awaiting trial as a pretrial detainee cannot be counted as time served toward the conviction, as jail time is for other pretrial detainees (People v. Ramos, 1990). In some jurisdictions, home detention is considered a part of probation, and time spent is counted. However, as with probation, if house arrest is revoked, time served on home confinement does not apply. Thus, if an offender with a one-year sentence to home confinement fails to complete the program, and his home arrest is revoked, he must begin his one-year sentence in jail and serve the full term.Another argument is that the intrusiveness of house arrest violates a pretrial detainee's constitutional right to privacy in the home, especially one occupied by other family members. To get around this, house arrests for pretrial defendants are voluntary, so if the offender does not agree to the conditions, he or she will be resentenced to another sanctioning option. A convicted offender's privacy rights, however, are not violated by the use of house arrest and/or electronic monitoring.Potential risks with house arrest are that offenders can still commit crimes from their homes. For example, pretrial detainees and probationers have been arrested for selling drugs out of their homes. Because customers came to the house and the detainee never left home, no violations were recorded. If it were not for suspicious neighbors calling the police, these probationers might have been able to continue selling drugs without getting caught for some time. Another challenge of house arrest is that domestic violence incidents may erupt. Because the offender is home all the time and cannot leave the house to "cool off," some offenders might take out their frustrations on family members in an abusive way.