Spiderman's Net

Jeffrey Stafford had served eight months in Florida's Palm Beach County stockade for aggravated assault when a judge offered him a choice: he could continue to do time in jail or he could go home. The catch? He would have to spend the remaining months of his sentence under electronic house arrest, with a radio transmitter attached to his ankle and a computer monitoring his movements. For Stafford, 28, it was no contest. Says he: "I had been in the stockade long enough to know I didn't ever want to go back."

Within a week Stafford was strapped up and on his way, one of a small but growing number of prisoners, parolees and probationers who are serving their time at home. The idea has even been used most recently to quarantine an AIDS victim. An accused prostitute, she has been equipped with one of the new devices and was awaiting arraignment last week in the custody of her mother. "We needed to get her out of the jail because of real or imagined contagion," says Florida Judge Edward Garrison, who has championed use of the technology in his state.

The monitors were inspired by a 1977 Spiderman cartoon and introduced in New Mexico six years later. Now the contraptions are catching on. Oregon's Linn County is using ankle transmitters to enforce curfew restrictions on repeat drunk-driving offenders. Kenton County, Ky., employs the devices to monitor fathers under house arrest for not paying child support. Lake County, Ill., has ordered $51,350 worth of equipment in an effort to cut prison costs and relieve overcrowding.

There are several competing systems. Digital Product's On Guard is an electronic handcuff. The offender wears a wristwatch-like device that must be inserted into a verifier box in response to random telephone calls from a corrections computer. Control Data's Home Escort system and Controlled Activities' Supervisor attach at the ankle. The Supervisor system used in Florida keeps constant vigil by sending a radio signal every 35 seconds to a central computer. If the signal stops, it tells officials that the prisoner has strayed more than 150 ft. or so from his house. The computer can be programmed to allow travel to and from work, and authorities still perform occasional spot checks to watch for tampering and to verify with the employer that the parolee actually shows up. Says Garrison: "If there is anything wrong with this program, we have not found it."

Some experts are not so certain. "All it tells you is that a person is where you want him to be," says Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Orville Pung. "He could be running a stolen-goods ring out of his house." The concept also prompts philosophical opposition. Says Joseph Vitek, director of corrections for Douglas County, Neb.: "It smacks of police state." Most / inmates, do not appear to be burdened by such considerations. Jeffrey Stafford, who is employed as a house painter, says he has every reason to make the idea work. "It would never enter my mind to tamper with the anklet," he claims. "This is a nice apartment. I hadn't had my own bed for a long time. I had Bunk 211-119. It wasn't my bed."