90 Days in Jail for Lindsay Lohan – Blame it on the Scram?
Failing to attend alcohol education classes landed actress Lindsay Lohan in jail for 90days.
The actress had apparently missed 7 or her scheduled classes as instructed by the Court in an earlier hearing.
Her film appearances include Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and The Parent Trap set her up as a promising star until drug & alcohol abuse landed her in hot water.
An unusual aspect of an earlier court ruling was the requirement for the actress to wear an ankle alcohol monitor, which apparently issued an alert after she attended an MTV movie award event.
Once such devise is know as the SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor) ankle bracelet.
This device is similar to the ankle bracelet law enforcement currently uses to monitor sex offenders and other persons that are under “house-arrest”.
Except that it does not keep people at home: it is worn 24 hours a day and can be monitored via the Internet at a 900MHz radio frequency, and allows the convicted person to move about normally in their daily lives.
The big difference is that it constantly monitors their blood alcohol level and can be set up to take as many as 48 tests per day without the wearer’s knowledge!
The SCRAM transdermal ankle bracelet is attached to the offender’s ankle and is not removed until their sentence has been completed. It is tamper-resistant and sends reports around the clock to the probation officer and the SCRAM headquarters with a bar chart result.
There is a modem that is placed in the offender’s home and when the wearer is within range of the modem, all reports are relayed immediately to the monitor.
This bracelet helps authorities determine the alcohol use of offenders and is rapidly becoming commonplace in drunk driving conviction sentences. It measures the molecules of ethanol coming off the body; 5% of everything you drink comes off the body in the form of perspiration.
The tool is an important part of the defense arsenal against alcohol abusers. Some people may argue that this is a case of “big brother” invasion on personal privacy, but you must consider the fact that they would not be “invaded” if they had used alcohol responsibly or avoided it altogether.
The manufacturers say that ‘It’s better to stop drunks between the bar and the car’, also known as “intervention at the point of consumption” than to deal with the drunk driver after the fact.
It would be interesting to see the reaction to their introduction in Ireland!
Comments please
Paul Tracey Blog
08/07/2010
