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Tips for Martha's home dentention
Now she may want some practical, no-cost tips on how to handle the other half that involves wearing a home-monitoring transmitter:
-- Boots could be a no-no depending on if you wear the electronic accessory as an anklet or bracelet. If it's down low, try wearing pants that flare at the bottoms to avoid any awkward wrinkles.
-- Consider using a soft cotton swab to lightly apply moisturizer or cream under the band if your finger doesn't fit. But don't worry if there's an icky, gummy build-up on the device after a while; just wash gently with a lightly fragrant soap and warm water.
-- You might also want to come up with fashionable disguises to conceal your battery-operated Big Brother (unless the bulky black watch design comes in a slimmed-down, skin-tone version). Maybe a floral-pattern ankle scarf or pastel silk wrist ribbon could become a new trend?
The Queen of Domesticity, recently released from a five-month sleepover at the minimum-security Camp Cupcake (aka West Virginia's Alderson Federal Prison Camp) for a stock-trading scandal, is grounded for five months - except for the 48 hours a week she is allowed for work.
Electronic monitoring is nothing new in terms of tracking criminals; Wyoming has used the technology in several capacities since the mid-'90s. But Martha's reason is different than how it's widely used in the state.
"We've determined that they need to be in the Intensive Supervision Program, certainly our highest level of supervision, and Martha Stewart really doesn't fit in with that," said Robert Doty, program manager for the state Department of Corrections' strictest form of probation.
"We're talking apples and oranges," he said.
While house arrest in Wyoming is mainly to help create structure and prevent people from relapsing into criminal tendencies, Martha's home restriction is part of her sentencing, Doty said.
"Our use of it, at least in this state, it's not so much part of the sentence," he said. "We've determined it helps at this level or we've determined that you need this as a sanction."
People on probation may have a couple of contacts weekly with their supervising officers. But the Intensive Supervision Program (ISP), which requires the first month on electronic monitoring, increases the contact level exponentially.
"Basically we're getting them to commit to a schedule and stick to a schedule and be held accountable to that schedule," Doty said. "And I think that eliminates a lot of the time to where they may not be productive."
Heather Mills, a soon-to-be Adult Drug Court graduate in Gillette, said the rigid accountability under house arrest was an important part of rebuilding structure in her life.
"That's the whole reason you would pick the program is because of the structure and the supervision, and that's what I needed at the time," Mills, 29, said about Drug Court, whose participants also must undergo electronic monitoring for the first month.
"It was just something that I knew I would get in trouble if I didn't obey and I didn't want to get into more trouble. I wanted to get my life back," said Mills, who was electronically supervised last February.
Probation agents agree that ISP participants could use help to ingrain in their daily routines the extensive rules and regulations placed upon them.
"It's a constant physical reminder of the schedule they have to be on," said Kelly Peters, a Gillette probation and parole agent.
Although Mills realized the benefits of undergoing house arrest, she said it wasn't as easy as pie (no doubt including concocting the mouth-watering maple bourbon pecan pie found at www.marthastewart.com).
"It wasn't, 'Actually, you get used to it.' It could be a little smaller; it's kind of big," she said about the transmitter. "When it got hot it was irritating."
She recalled one day when she went to Wal-Mart on the wrong day she had indicated on her schedule with her probation officer and "it went off."
A receiver unit plugs into a home's phone line and sends reports that track a person's activity - when someone is out of range and back in signal contact. They are posted on the Internet for probation agents to access.
A phone line, not a cell phone, is mandatory.
If they don't have one, "they're required to get one," Peters said.
In most cases, it's either shell out the bucks to get a phone line or sit in jail. "They're required to get one usually before they get out of jail onto ISP," Peters said. "It's a court order from the district court that says they have to have a land-line phone."
The unit also reports if the band connecting the transmitter to the person, or other connections such as phone or electricity, is severed. The box, about the size of a cable television unit, is even equipped with a very authoritative feminine voice that commands attention when sounded.
Mills was unsure of how Martha would handle the responsibility, but she had this to say: "It's just you know you got to want to obey the law. You have minor, honest mistakes and stuff, but I didn't have a problem about wanting to cut it off and leave it at my house."
- By Martin Reed, News-Record writer/For more on this topic, see Sunday's News-Record
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