House-arrest extravagance

There are only a few dozen people in the CR who have been assigned to home detention so far, but Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil plans to go ahead early next year with an electronic house-arrest tender that could cost the cash-strapped Czech government as much as Kč 2bn. He told F1 radio that the tender is being rewritten so that the conditions are "as favorable as possible" to the state, yet he made it clear that ankle monitors and home transmitters will be an expected part of the bids. This excludes many innovative small Czech companies that could devise an automated-calling system using a combination of land lines, cellphone tracking, voice-recognition software and a few cheap computers to accomplish nearly the same job for a few hundred thousand crowns. If the convict failed to pick up at home, his next home would be prison. But why buy a Škoda when the taxpayers will pay for an Audi? [Czech Republic sentence Frekvence jedna Pressclub]