1.   What is the advantage of transdermal analysis versus breath, blood, or urine testing?

            Breath, blood, and urine testing is accurate and reliable for on-the-spot testing, such as a roadside sobriety test. As a point-in-time tool, they are generally reliable and cost-effective. However, when applied to a Periodic/Random Testing Program, where clients are randomly requested to take a test, either from home or at a testing center, their effectiveness is greatly diminished. Drugs often remain in the body for days or even weeks, so Random/Period testing protocols are more efficient at pinpointing drug use. Monitoring for alcohol consumption, however, is more difficult. The body metabolizes alcohol very quickly, and once this process is complete, there are no trace elements left to facilitate detection. For example, a 190-pound adult male will take less than five hours to go from the legal DUI limit of .08 BAC to .00 BAC. That means that unless you test at least once every three hours, a practical impossibility with breath, blood, and urine tests, you will be unable to detect most drinking events.

 

2.   How is SCRAM currently being used?

            Agencies throughout the country are using SCRAM as a comprehensive offender-classification tool, beginning with the initial evaluation and identification of potential repeat DUI offenders. SCRAM enables agencies to quickly identify and intervene with offenders who need additional treatment and abstinence monitoring, while simultaneously identifying low-risk subjects who are in compliance with their probation or treatment requirements. SCRAM is being applied to parolees, probationers, and as a tool to transition felony DUI offenders from incarceration to the community. SCRAM is also used on Drug Court clients. Even though those offenders are in a Drug Court program for nonviolent drug offenses, once drug testing begins, Drug Court offenders frequently turn to alcohol as their drug of choice. It's legal to purchase and difficult to catch in the body. Domestic Violence and Family Courts are also implementing SCRAM Programs, since alcohol is universally acknowledged as a significant trigger for as many as 75% of spousal abuse offenses.

 

3.   Have SCRAM test results been upheld in court challenges?

            Yes. The SCRAM System's viability has been upheld in numerous court challenges, typically in bond- and probation-revocation hearings. One of the key reasons for this is the comprehensive documentation and graphical evidence collected from each individual SCRAM System and archived in the AMS centralized, secure database. SCRAMnet's graphical data, showing quantitative data points plotted against date and time, is always accessible for immediate review and action. Scramnet was also designed to quickly deliver both a complete history of an offender's tamper and alcohol-consumption events and a snapshot of a specific tamper or consumption alert, both of which provide documented, verifiable evidence of a violation.

 

4.   How does the cost of SCRAM compare to other programs that identify and supervise offenders who have alcohol abuse as a significant component of their offense?

The offender will pay an initial installation fee of $75, and the daily monitoring fee of $12 per day. To compare, Home Arrest systems that incorporate a remote alcohol testing component test at most 3 times per day at an average daily cost of $15 each day. Jurisdictions across the country are looking to both technology and the community corrections model to relieve the issues of prison overcrowding and labor-intensive monitoring. When SCRAM is utilized as an alternative supervisory method for court-identified offenders, the costs are substantially lower than incarceration.

 

5.   Who pays for SCRAM?

The SCRAM System, like most electronic monitoring programs used today, is delivered on an offender-pay model, so the offenders absorb either all or a significant portion of the cost for the equipment and daily monitoring fees. This model is an already-established process in the criminal justice system that eliminates reliance on temporary funding or year-to-year grant requests. Currently, approximately 90% of offenders on SCRAM are paying for all or a significant portion of SCRAM fees. The rest receive some sort of government funding to subsidize the daily cost.

 

6.   Can SCRAM prevent people from drinking and driving, like ignition interlock technology?

SCRAM cannot prevent an offender who is wearing the bracelet from drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car. However, when you look at the logistical reality of ignition interlock programs, there is nothing that prevents an offender from drinking and getting into someone else's car and driving. The bottom line is that SCRAM will know and will report that the offender was drinking?period. That alone will be in violation of either probation or treatment requirements and will result in appropriate action. Offenders report that that risk alone often results in the decision not to drink. Alcohol abuse or addiction is usually the fundamental problem for repeat alcohol offenders. Ignition interlock does nothing to deal with this root cause, allowing offenders to drink at any time.

 

7.   How does AMS generate revenue?

AMS generates revenue in two ways: Through sales (or the leasing) of the individual units; and through daily monitoring charges. Almost all courts are passing the SCRAM-related costs on to the offenders as part of sentencing. That makes SCRAM a very effective alternative to incarceration, the cost of which is incurred by a state or county.

 

8.   What kind of track record does AMS have?

AMS launched SCRAM to customers in June 2003. As of January 2005, AMS has over 2,200 units in the market and has conducted nearly 10 million alcohol tests on 6,000 offenders in 26 states. SCRAM customers include many of the country's largest agencies, including Orange County, California, Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana, Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona, Detroit, and Dallas (Tarrant County), Texas.

 

9.   How big of a problem is alcohol abuse and crime?

      The United States spends more than $184.5 billion each year dealing with the effects of alcohol abuse. In 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services estimated that 13.4 million Americans were dependent on or abused alcohol. Of these, nearly 2.2 million people received treatment for alcohol abuse, at a cost of $5.5 billion from the criminal justice system and private treatment providers. When it comes to crime, more than 2.4 million people each year are convicted of a crime committed while under the influence of alcohol. More than 1.1 million of those convictions are for drunk driving, with another 1.3 million for crimes committed while under the influence of alcohol but not operating a motor vehicle. In 2000, the U.S. broke the $100 million-dollar-a-day barrier in spending to incarcerate individuals with serious drug and alcohol problems

 

10. How do agencies manage the data and test results?

       They don't have to. The data is automatically collected and transmitted by the bracelet and sent automatically to the secure, web-based data center, SCRAMnet. AMS manages SCRAMnet, which is hosted by IBM Global Services. That means agencies don't have to support costly investment in computer hardware, software, or IT support. All offender data and testing results are easily accessed via the Internet, from any location, using standard Web browsers.

 

11. Where is SCRAM being used?

       SCRAM Programs are being implemented in specialty courts including DUI, Drug, and Domestic Violence Courts; as part of prisoner re-entry programs; in the pre-trial setting as a condition of bond; and as a sanction and monitoring tool for probationers.