A reader comments on a similar situation in Minnesota:
This is not new, nor just confined to South Carolina. Dakota County — for one I am sure of — has been doing this for years, right here in Minnesota. The amount one pays for the electronic monitoring is exorbitant, and the monitoring service actually does a piss-poor job. So do the other parole monitoring people you have to meet with, so bad a job that you run the risk of being reincarcerated simply because of their incompetence (e.g. missing court ordered appointments, etc.). And if you’re in the Dakota county jail, they charge you for your room and board. Another scam perpetrated on the taxpayers and the accused is the bail bond system. In theory, you pay some percentage of your bond to a bail bond company, sort of like buying an insurance policy that they will pay the state if you don’t show. In theory, anyway. In reality, the bail bond companies don’t ever actually pay the court system anything (or rarely). They just pocket your money. The whole “criminal” justice system in this country is company corrupt, dishonest, and nothing at all like “justice”.
I was not aware that Minnesota did this – and I grew up in Dakota County.
