Normally, district attorneys and sheriffs are among the front line troops aiming to remove potential criminals from your neighborhood.

So on the surface, news that Brad Burget, district attorney for the Seventh Judicial District, and Concordia Parish Sheriff Kenneth Hedrick are scheming to release a few inmates and send them home for a while comes as a bit of a surprise.

But that’s only half the story of their interest in exploring a plan that would release selected inmates to wear ankle-monitoring devices that track the wearer’s location by using GPS technology.

The goal is to ultimately save taxpayer money on not having to house some low-risk inmates awaiting trial.

In particular, Burget and Hedrick are seeking permission to put the tracking devices on inmates with medical problems. The goal there is to allow the inmates themselves to worry over and pay for their medical treatment instead of Concordia Parish taxpayers.

Their plans, at least in simple terms, seem sound and at the very least worth exploring on a test basis to determine how well the system might work.

We applaud Burget and Hedrick for considering the option and hope the Concordia Parish Police Jury considers all options for testing the plan, both the one on the table from a specific vendor but also from other vendors as well.