If you get a jail sentence in Comal County, you might not have to worry anymore about starting a fight with other inmates over what TV show to watch in the jail rec room. Now you might be able to serve your jail sentence in your own private rec room, with a remote. A while back, this blog reported that the Comal County Jail was becoming overcrowded to the point that the jail was sometimes turning away defendants who had been order to report for weekend jail sentences. One of the ways that the county courts-at-law have responded is by starting he county's first house arrest program for adults.
If you are ordered to serve a jail sentence for a misdemeanor, the court may, if you make a request, order you to do your "jail" time at home. If you are in the program, you are given curfew times, during which you must be in your house. You are required to wear a GPS ankle monitor that transmits signals concerning your location to a private security company, which contracts with the County to provide the service. If you leave your house, or tamper with the monitor, during curfew hours, then local law enforcement is notified of the violation so that you may be arrested.
In addition, a friendly guy from the local probation department reserves the right to pop over to your house and check on you unannounced in order to make sure that you have not tampered with the monitor and to make sure that you aren't doing anything illegal in your home while under house arrest. If a person wants to participate in the program, he is screened by the local probation department and a recommendation is made to the court. There is no set of carved-in-stone rules that establish who does and does not qualify for the program. Generally, though, the probation department is looking for people with a non-violent, non-DWI offense, a relatively clean record, and no history of absconding.
In order for the monitor to work, you must have a telephone land line set up at your house. You must also pay to be in the program; the current cost is $6 a day. On the down side, you won't have an opportunity to get a jail tattoo, join a gang (unless they want to meet at your place), or get time carved off your sentence for good behavior. But it is a good excuse to get DirectTV and work your way through you NetFlix queue.