The Associated Press
PONTIAC, Mich. — Oakland County officials looking for ways to fight jail overcrowding are being asked to consider a pilot program to provide tethers for low-income offenders.
The Oakland County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council has asked the county Board of Commissioners to spend $200,000 on the pilot program, with a two-year test taking place in district courts in Novi, Waterford and Pontiac.
“Only rich people get out?” asked Circuit Judge Steven N. Andrews, a member of the council. “Give me a break. That’s not the way the justice system should work. Poor people should not fill up the jails.”
Inmates pay about $500 a month to be on a tether in place of remaining in jail.
The county jail is near an overcrowding emergency after a small controlled release last week fell short of getting down to the capacity of 1,828, The Oakland Press reported.
“We were one away,” Chief Circuit Judge Wendy Potts said. “Just one, just one more person, and we would have avoided it.”
Potts said it would be less expensive to give some inmates a tether than house them in the jail.
The jail is to reach emergency status Monday if the number of inmates exceeds 1,828. That would require the jail’s eighth emergency release in two years unless the population gets to 1,803 by later this month.
“There are people suffering because they cannot pay,” County Commissioner Mattie Hatchett said. “Hundreds of folks are sitting in jail because they can’t pay.”
Representatives from House Arrest Services in Eastpointe told the criminal justice council that four types of tethers are available, ranging in cost from $8 to $16 per day, with a startup cost of about $100.
It costs about $96 a day to house an inmate in jail.