Things You Need to Know About Home Confinement

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Anyone who is confined at home needs to have an understanding of what the rules are for home confinement. If you fail to observe these rules, you could be subject to arrest and formal confinement in a public institution. You certainly won’t appreciate the routine, the food, or the daily life of formal confinement in a federal or local prison. Therefore, you should take the information below to heart, and follow it faithfully, so as to avoid any further run-ins with the authorities.

Consent to visits by a probation officer

All rules of house arrest include visits by a probation officer, and these can be pre-arranged, or they can be completely unannounced. Such visits are made by people in authority, so they can determine that you are abiding by all other rules of home confinement and that you are avoiding trouble in your home life. It’s also possible that you might have to attend meetings, which are often held at the probation office. These are regularly scheduled meetings intended to check up on you, and to make sure you’re abiding by the rules of home confinement. Obviously, you’d be allowed to leave your home confinement temporarily in order to attend such meetings.

Comply with evening curfew

Most people who are under house arrest will also have an evening curfew imposed, and that means any activities which you may have scheduled away from the house have to be completed by a certain time of day. There may be some leeway if you have a good job that requires you to work late, but this will have to be approved by your probation officer. Any person who is under house arrest and also has an evening curfew, will be obliged to give up any late evening activities that might require them to leave the household. The purpose of having an evening curfew is to steer the inmate away from becoming involved in potentially harmful activities, such as drinking and doing drugs.

Don’t leave home without approval

This is one of the most obvious rules of house arrest, and it, of course, requires that an inmate remains on their premises throughout the day. However, it doesn’t quite mean that you’re obliged to stay in the house at all times without ever leaving. What’s really intended by the rule is that you don’t leave the house without prior approval. There are some legitimate activities that might require you to leave home, and these may be approved by your probation officer. Such activities might include going to work or school, participating in treatment programs, service requirements, religious services, doctor appointments, or counseling sessions with a therapist. Even these require approval from your probation officer, so make sure you have that approval before leaving the premises. It’s possible that your probation officer might approve other reasons for temporarily breaking home confinement, but you can never assume this – always make sure you have prior approval, so you don’t run afoul of the law.

Wearing an ankle monitor

It’s almost always necessary for someone confined at home to wear a GPS device around their ankles at all times. Whether you are home or away, the monitors have to be worn 24/7, and the monitor will notify your probation officer if you break confinement. In such a case, the probation officer is free to arrest you on the spot, even without getting an arrest warrant first. Anyone under house arrest is not allowed to tamper with the monitoring device or take it off, and if you do, it’s entirely possible that your home confinement might be converted into formal imprisonment. Granted, it can be a huge nuisance to constantly wear this kind of ankle monitor, but when it’s one of the rules of house arrest, it simply must be observed by an inmate.

Abstaining from drugs

Another rule of home confinement is that the inmate will be obliged to abstain from alcohol and drugs, especially if the reason for your confinement is related to drug possession or DUI. Quite often, when your probation officer pays a visit to your house to check on you, that would be the ideal time to check for the presence of drugs or alcohol in your home. Your probation officer also has the right to demand that you take a random drug test in order to make sure that you’re complying with the rules of home confinement. Some situations will require that an inmate wear a drug or alcohol monitor in the form of an adhesive patch. Tampering with or removing this drug and alcohol detector is a violation of the rules of home confinement, and it could subject an inmate to formal imprisonment. This is a pretty cut and dried rule – no drugs, no alcohol.

Sources

  1. https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/home-confinement-rules/
About Neel Achary 18881 Articles
Neel Achary is the editor of Business News This Week. He has been covering all the business stories, economy, and corporate stories.