Alcohol Monitoring Systems, Inc. has created alcohol monitoring bracelets, worn around the ankle, to test a person's blood alcohol level through perspiration every 30 minutes. The bracelets (anklets?) are rapidly becoming popular with law enforcement as an inexpensive, noninvasive — and often successful — alternative to prison sentences.

Every time the bracelet tests a wearer's perspiration, the information is sent through a wireless modem unit to Scramnet, which is located in Colorado. The Scramnet team analyzes data and passes on alerts and other information to law enforcement.

In the state of Virginia, for instance, it costs the state roughly $150 per day to keep a person incarcerated. But to wear a Secure Continuous Alcohol Monitor (SCRAM), it only costs $12, and that comes out of the defendant's pocket. In addition, it keeps the prison system from becoming even more overcrowded.

While no state has made SCRAM technology completely available to its citizens, county by county law enforcement are beginning to adopt the bracelets. The Littleton, Colo.-based company says its technology is now used in 48 states.

The Virginia branch of Alcohol Monitoring Systems, for example, has a sliding scale fee to cover installation, battery changes, maintenance and the like. The cost depends on the income of the individual needing SCRAM.

"Our fees will adjust to what they can afford," Alex Reid, president and owner of Virginia Alcohol Monitoring, told OhMyGov. Reid's company is a local partner of the Colorado firm. "We have a few clients who pay absolutely nothing because they cannot afford it. Period."

Since the company started in January 2008, Virginia Alcohol Monitoring has managed to get 160 clients. But Reid must reach out to each individual law enforcement department in each county to get the state to slowly accept it.

Michelle White, the Drug Court coordinator for Loudoun County, Va., a rapidly growing suburb west of Washington, D.C., was one of the first people Reid approached to sell the bracelets in 2008.

"About the same time our program was looking for a better or different way of monitoring alcohol consumption amongst participants was about the same time we heard about SCRAM," White said in an interview. "It was perfect timing."

For White, the ankle bracelets have definitely been an added value to her department.

"The people in our program are all substance abusers," she said. "And what we found lacking in our supervision was the ability to monitor alcohol consumption. It's not like other drugs; it's hard to monitor because it comes in and out of a person's system so quickly."

The ankle bracelets have a nationwide compliance rate of 75 percent, which helps make them an inexpensive and effective tool in battling recidivism.

To hear proponents describe it, SCRAM lowers incarceration rates and gives people a chance at becoming a member of their community without being stigmatized. Indeed, with more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States has more people incarcerated than any other country in the world. Nearly 650,000 prisoners are released from federal and state correctional facilities every year, but because of the difficulties in maintaining a stable lifestyle, 50 percent go back to jail within three years.

But for all the states that are adopting SCRAM technology, the federal government has yet to sign on, though they have funded some grants that support local programs.

Michelle White was able to get receive a federal grant to help substance abusers in her department pay for the bracelets, but that grant does not extend to departments outside of the Loudoun County Drug Court.

Reid didn't have the same luck. "I tried to help bolster individual funds for people who can't afford SCRAM," he said. "We applied for a federal grant to expand the program state-wide in Virginia and we did not get the grant."

Reid believes that making SCRAM a federal program isn't what's important; what's important is that SCRAM can change a person's life more than a stint in jail can.

"The bracelet is a constant reminder that if they [the offenders] drink someone will know and they will be held accountable," Reid said.

According to Reid, many SCRAM users ask if they can keep the bracelet when their required time is up, to help stay sober.