Riverside County funding alcohol monitoring system

The county of Riverside has found the money for a program that helps keep drunken drivers off the roads.

Four years ago Riverside County became the first in the state to have felony DUI offenders strap on alcohol monitoring ankle bracelets. The system is known as Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring or SCRAM.

In order to keep the program intact, the county is bracing to replenish a $50,000 pool for people who can’t afford to enroll in the program. SCRAM users are required to help cover the costs of being monitored 24/7 for up to a year, at a cost of $12 a day.

“It’s a condition of their probation as a result of a plea bargain that they do certain things, one of them, pay the cost and be subjected to this type of monitoring,” said Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit.

The county says the SCRAM devices have had over a 90 percent success rate in keeping repeat DUI offenders off the roads.