Dominique Strauss-Kahn, indicted on sex assault charges in the infamous New York hotel incident, is out on bail on condition he wear an electronic ankle bracelet, and submit to round-the-clock confinement under armed guard in an apartment. Stroz Friedberg, a security firm hired by Strauss-Kahn’s defense team, explained that a “Personal Tracking Unit” would “provide real time GPS monitoring” of his location, says Slate.com.
While other defendants rot in jail, Strauss-Kahn lives in a townhouse with five bathrooms, a home theater, a gym, water-jet tubs, and a big skylight. “Home detention is like jail outside of jail,” Edward Stroz, the founder of Stroz Friedberg, tells Bloomberg. Instead of opposing home detention for rich people, Slate contends that perhaps its advantages should be extended to ordinary defendants. Armed guards are expensive, but GPS bracelets can be remotely monitored from a central location. They give courts a way of securing defendants that’s stronger than bail but less costly and onerous than jail. Thousands of defendants and parolees already wear them. The trick is to keep driving down the technology’s cost.