Electronic House Arrest

Today’s post covers some of the nuts and bolts of electronic house arrest (EHA). EHA is fairly self-explanatory: in lieu of traditional incarceration, a person is confined to his or her residence by way of an electronic monitor that signals authorities if he or she departs. The focus here is on EHA as a component of a criminal sentence, not as a condition of pretrial release, although the same technology may be used for that purpose. Legal background. House arrest with electronic monitoring is a defined term under Structured Sentencing. Under G.S. 15A-1340.11(4a), it is probation in which a person is required to remain at his or her residence. The court may authorize the person to leave for certain purposes (work, education, or treatment, for example), and a probation officer may authorize the person to leave for other purposes not mentioned by the court with the approval of a chief probation officer.  There are actually two statutory conditions that mention EHA—the statutory special condition set out in G.S. 15A-1343(b1)(3c) and the “community and intermediate” condition set out in G.S. 15A-1343(a1)(1)—but there's no apparent substantive distinction between the two. For offenses committed before December 1, 2011, EHA was an “intermediate” sanction under G.S. 15A-1340.11(6), meaning it could be imposed only as part of an intermediate sentence. That distinction was repealed for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2011, meaning EHA may now be imposed as part of any probationary sentence. Electronic house arrest is also one of the sanctions a probation [...]