Is Prisoner Day-reporting Program Considered ''incarceration'' ?

In People v. Cagle, 7 NY3d 647, 860 N.E.2d 51, 826 N.Y.S.2d 589 (2006), the Court held that a defendant is "incarcerated" during the period which he or she serves a portion of his or her sentence of imprisonment in a day-reporting program. The Court relied on statutes that referred to an inmate in a day-reporting program as enjoying "extended bounds of confinement," and that required continual reporting to a facility as well as frequent drug testing. The Court also referred to a statute that requires an inmate to sign a memorandum of agreement and a copy of the day-reporting rules which specify that the program is a revocable privilege and "that the inmate remains in the custody of DOCS'." People v. Cagle, at p. 650. Therefore, while an inmate participating in a day-reporting program is not "incarcerated" in the practical sense that he or she is precluded from leaving the facility in which he or she is being housed, the inmate is considered legally "incarcerated."