In terms of how electronic monitoring actually works, the name is a fairly good indicator of the function therein. Those awaiting juvenile sentencing or those juvenile criminals remanded to the custody of their families are given devices that indicate their relative position in or outside their home and special conditions for when they are allowed to leave the house.
On top of this, regular contact is expected between authorities/other supervisors and the at-home detainee. Usually, this will be initiated by the monitoring party with calls to the offender's home to confirm the juvenile is where he or she is supposed to be at a given time.
The obvious benefit to offenders under electronic monitoring in the wake of juvenile sentencing is that they will be able to serve the terms of the court's ruling from the safety of home, assuming such a place is safe for them. It should be noted that is not meant to be a vacation for juvenile criminals, but rather a controlled environment where their rehabilitation can get the attention it deserves.
As such, they must adhere to the demands of accountability for their location as well as work with appointed professionals to determine a plan of attack for addressing their problems and staying out of the juvenile justice system.
To be sure, at-home electronic monitoring has its skeptics and critics, but supporters of this form of juvenile sentencing tout its many successes. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, failure rates for juvenile criminals in some studied samples of electronic monitoring have been reported as low as 5%, and overall, experimental groups have outperformed controls in the areas of recidivism and rehabilitation completion.
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