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13 N. Ky. L. Rev. 343 (1986-1987)
A Brief History of House Arrest and Electronic Monitoring

handle is hein.journals/nkenlr13 and id is 351 raw text is: A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOUSE ARREST AND
ELECTRONIC MONITORING*
J. Robert Lilly and Richard A. Bal**
Recent years have seen a dramatic explosion of interest in the
development of what has been referred to traditionally as house
arrest.1 This term is often used loosely and it is probably
preferable to refer to this correctional policy alternative as home
confinement, a term that has the virtue of covering more specific
practices such as home detention (in which the residence is used
as a detention facility) and home incarceration (in which the
residence replaces a jail or prison as a point of incarceration).
The term house arrest tends to imply police action without
much in the way of judicial process. Nevertheless, the term may
be appropriate in a nontechnical sense in that it offers a means
* This article, in part, is drawn from the forthcoming book, R. BALL, R. HUFF & J.R.
LILLY, HOUSE ARREST AND CORRECTIONAL POLICY: DOING TIME AT HOME (1987). The authors
are grateful to A. Harold Lilly for information he provided on St. Paul the Apostle's house
arrest.
** J. Robert Lilly, B.S., Concord College, 1966; A.M, West Virginia University, 1969;
Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1975. Richard A. Ball, A.A., Potomac State, 1956; B.S.,
West Virginia University, 1958; A.M., West Virginia University, 1960; Ph.D., Ohio State
University, 1965.
1. For example, when Kenton County, Kentucky, began its pilot project with home
incarceration and electronic monitoring in 1985, it was the third such program in the
United States. By December, 1986, there were at least 45 similar programs in the nation.
The rapid interest in house arrest and electronic monitoring allowed Anthony Travisono,
executive director of the American Corrections Association, to state that 1985 was the
year that mentioning house arrest and electronic monitoring no longer raised eyebrows.
Taylor-Weeks, Behavioral Electronics, 41 JERICO 3, 4 (May 1986).
The interest in manufacturing electronic monitoring equipment for crminals also ex-
perienced a rapid growth. When only a dozen states or local jurisdictions were using
house arrest, no more than seven companies were manufacturing electronic handcuffs.
By December, 1986, more than a dozen companies were in competition for new clients.
The manufacturer with the most clients in January 1987 was Corrections Services, Inc.,
West Palm Beach, Florida; it supplies nearly 50 percent of the nation's home incarceration
and electronic monitoring sites with monitoring equipment. Orders for this type of
equipment has also changed dramatically. While lease or purchase orders of 10-20 units
for experimental purposes were still common in late 1986, orders for as many as 100-150
units, worth $300,000-$350,000, were also appearing. Report: Jail Costs Will Soar to $775
Million, Palm Beach News, Dec. 10, 1986, at B1. And by early 1987, prison overcrowding
* in Texas and Florida fueled manufacturers to speculate that orders for 1,000-3,000 units
would soon occur.

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