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At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office will request permission to launch an electronic monitoring program that would allow offenders to be released into the community and tracked with a GPS device rather than serving time in jail.

The request appears on the Consent Calendar portion of the agenda, which means it could get approved early in the meeting, with little or no discussion. But a staff report offers justification for the initiative, noting frequent crowding at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility in the wake of 2011’s Criminal Justice Realignment Act (AB 109), which shifted responsibility for custody of people convicted of certain offenses (deemed non-serious, non-violent, or non-high-risk sex-related) from the state to counties.

In 2018, 2019 and the early part of this year (before COVID-19 hit), the jail’s population averaged more than 90 percent of its rated capacity, according to the report. The electronic monitoring program would keep the jail population lower “while allowing offenders the opportunity to continue to be productive members of the community,” the staff report says.

The program may also wind up saving the county money. In anticipation of this transition, the Sheriff’s Office entered into an agreement with Attenti U.S., Inc., a multinational company that specializes in electronic monitoring. The three-year contract with Attenti could cost up to $50,000, but the county stands to save much more than that on food, clothing and caring for inmates.

As the report notes, “The average cost of incarcerating an individual [at the jail] is $113 per day, while the cost of the electronic monitoring with Attenti is $3.20 daily per person.” The report goes on to do some back-of-the-napkin math: Having 10 participants in the electronic monitoring program would cost the county $960 per month. “If that was sustained for the entire year the total annual fiscal cost would be $11,520.”

Using the county’s own figures, the cost of housing 10 inmates at the jail for a year would exceed $400,000. 

The Sheriff’s Office says it will use the electronic monitoring program in conjunction with its existing Sheriff’s Work Alternative Program (SWAP). Participants, who would need to apply for inclusion, could serve their sentences by being placed on electronic surveillance and working for SWAP one day per week.