SCRAM: 50/8000

In my eight month's of SCRAM, I had been in for many regularly scheduled maintenance appointments. During one of these visits, a woman, not a large or masculine woman, broke the strap while putting it on my leg. At the time it was of no concern to me, until a concerned mother contacted me of an occurance which had her daughter incarcerated. Her story follows.

Apparently the strap broke while she was at work, and she had witnesses. She called the monitoring office and got an answering machine, her therapist, and arrived at the office attempting to explain the situation. The montoring office called AMS, the represenative advised that she had not come across any case where the band had just come off the ankle without force or being cut. The defendant was not afforded a hearing and after the charged with criminal damage, (a felony), charged for the whole system-$1400, and sent to jail. Fortunately, they kept the bracelet for further investigation and Royce McDonald (technician) advised that there was no identifiable offender damage to the front strap of the bracelet, McDonald further related that AMS has seen this kind of damage on less than 50 bracelets out of more than 8000 built. The charges have been refused, yet the defendant had to finish her inpatient program. This is another example of the fallibility's, the misuse of over-zealous probation departments and/or electronic monitoring companies, the effects of continuous monitoring and is neither justice nor constructive in rehabilitation.

Contradiction:
SCRAM wearers are told not to spray perfumes, hairspray or wear alcohol-based lotions, to avoid testing errors. Monitoring specialists at AMS, however, are able to determine whether or not an alcohol reading was triggered by alcohol consumption. Alcohol that has been consumed stays in the body longer and can be detected by the sensors longer, according to Kathleen Brown, AMS spokeswoman.