Authorization for Continuous Alcohol Monitoring Expanded by S.L. 2012-146

Five years ago, the General Assembly authorized judges to require that defendants placed on probation for a Level One or Level Two impaired driving offense abstain from consuming alcohol for at least thirty but not more than sixty days as verified by a continuous alcohol monitoring system. Continuous alcohol monitoring systems (CAM) employ ankle transmitter devices that monitor a person’s sweat for the presence of alcohol and transmit those results to a service provider.  While CAM devices look like and operate similarly to other electronic monitoring equipment used by probation officers, the lack of state funding for CAM, as contrasted to that available for other offender monitoring programs—electronic house arrest and GPS tracking—has limited its use and rendered it controversial.  The vendor currently authorized to provide CAM charges an installation fee of $75 plus $12 for each day of monitoring.  At $360 a month, CAM costs far exceed the one-time $90 fee for the electronic device used to monitor house arrest. Acknowledging CAM’s price tag, the General Assembly initially limited to $1,000 a defendant’s total CAM costs and prohibited a court, upon finding good cause that a defendant should not be required to pay, from imposing CAM absent local government funding. Last year, in an act known as “Laura’s Law,” the General Assembly created a new Aggravated Level One punishment for DWI, which required as a condition of probation abstinence from alcohol as verified by CAM for a minimum of 120 days. The act further authorized judges to require CAM for [...]