August 18, 2014
Ward Byers, head of Court Services for Marshall County appeared before the County Commissioners Monday with a contract and said, “I continue to strive forward and add some additional services that we can provide to the courts.” This new contract with B.I. Corporation will allow for an expansion of alcohol monitoring for offenders.
Currently Court Services can provide in home alcohol monitoring through 3M.
The new products offered by B.I. Corporation offers a trans-dermal continuous alcohol monitoring ankle bracelet for high risk alcohol offenders or a sober link unit similar to a portable breath test that police officers use but on steroids. A schedule can be set up to have the offender test and when that happens a GPS code also goes up to allow Court Services to pin-point the location of the offender. If the offender fails to provide sample or fail the sample Byers would immediately receive a text message of the violation.
The daily fee is passes on to the offender as a user fee. The additional alcohol monitoring service is $12 daily.
Byers said they had a Sober-Link system to test for 7 days and found it to be very valuable.
The executive director said fees for the units are not charged to the county until it is put into service and then the offender will pay the fee. The County Commissioner approved the new contract with the stipulation that the County Attorney review the contract.