“We are looking for the person on house arrest. Please press the BAT button.” Daniel Lemke hears this on his phone three times a day. It’s called the Alco-sensor. Developed by Mitsubishi, it is one of the few devices that can be called Orwellian without exaggerating. The Alco-sensor is essentially a home breathalyzer with a modem. A central computer at Minnesota Monitoring generates a call to the Alco-sensor client at home. The client sets the device for a fresh test, gets in front of the built-in camera, and blows through a straw into the machine. Minnesota Monitoring gets a printout of the client’s face and the results of a pass/fail sobriety check.
“If you fail, it’s pretty much like you’ve skipped bail,” said Lemke, who allowed The Rake to see the device he took home from a D.W.I. arrest in November. “It’s a condition of release. So if you fail, they’ll come and get you,” said the 40-year-old handyman.
Karen Burkey is a manager at Minnesota Monitoring. I asked her if she is Big Brother, and she laughed. “I guess, kind of.” Her company specializes in what has grown to be a staggering array of products that keep tabs on substance-abuse suspects; drug testing for schools, home kits for parents, urine testing for employers, ankle bracelets, and counseling. Burkey said she’s got about 250 Alco-sensors in service at any given time, and is pleased with the “customer service” record with the machine. The “customer service” concept isn’t as ironic as it seems. Inferior products, Burkey pointed out, often generate false positives from non-alcohol products like cigarettes. This makes an obvious difference to the people who have to blow into the thing three times a day.
Some D.W.I. defense attorneys are incensed by the Alco-sensor. State law now requires $12,000 bail to release any D.W.I. suspect who tests at twice the legal limit (.20 percent or higher blood alcohol) or has a previous conviction. Those who can’t cough up the 12 large (or the $1,200 bond toward it) are allowed to go home with an Alco-sensor.
“The Alco-sensor is punishment before guilt and violates the basic tenets of our rights and freedoms, most importantly the presumption of innocence,” said Lemke’s attorney, Chris Ritts. Adding that it leaves wealthy violators free to post bail and tipple as much as they please pre-trial, he also points out that it amounts to confinement; failure to be home for any of the three scheduled daily calls is an automatic violation. Burkey estimates that her monitoring site gets about five violations a week.
Other attorneys say Alco-sensor benefits less-affluent clients who would otherwise sit in the clink awaiting settlement or trial. But given the house-arrest quality of the program, they’d like it more if suspects could get credit for time served at sentencing. Lemke is hoping to make such a case if he’s found guilty. By his next court date, he will have been married to the machine for more than five weeks.—Joe Pastoor
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