Shift in state budget priorities

In the aftermath of decades-long tough on crime legislation that increased the US inmate population from 200,000^[6] in 1973 to over two million in 2009,^[7] financially strapped states and cities turned to technology—wrist and ankle monitors—to reduce inmate populations as courts mandated inmate reductions in overcrowded prisons, and states realigned their budgets to address other priorities in education, housing and infrastructure.^[8]

Community control versus prison outsourcing

In response to the shift from brick and mortar carceral institutions to what law enforcement termed "community control" under electronic monitoring, an oppositional movement pushed back, describing a widening net of "mass incarceration to mass surveillance" that threatened privacy and individual freedom while reinforcing social stratification, disrupting an individual's connections to the community and resulting in a subgroup of second-class citizens in the U.S., where African Americans are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate of white people.^{[9][10][11][12][13]} Michelle Alexander, author and civil rights advocate, refers to electronic ankle monitoring practices as the "Newest Jim Crow," increasingly segregating black people under bail reform laws that "look good on paper" but are based on a presumption of guilt and replace bail with shackles as pre-trial detainees consent to electronic monitoring in order to be released from jail. "Entire communities could "become trapped in digital prisons that keep them locked out of neighborhoods where jobs and opportunity can be found", says Alexander,^[14] who advocates re-integration of individuals into the community via quality schools, jobs, drug treatment and mental health services as opposed to "high-tech management and control."

On the other hand, advocates^[who?] of "community control" argue^[15] electronic monitoring is humane—sometimes allowing pretrial detainees, who have not been convicted yet but make up most of the local jail population,^[16] as well as offenders on probation and parole, an opportunity to live at home with their families, enjoying freedom to move from one room to the next rather than confined in a 1.8×2.4 m cell. Electronic monitoring, they argue, saves cash poor state valuable resources while benefitting offenders who can become productive. Says Ann Toyer of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, "We get them back into the community where they can work, they pay taxes, they have access to community services ... If we can get them back into the community, get them working, they can pay for those services."^[17] In addition, proponents of electronic monitoring say the technology can be used to incapacitate violent criminals and reduce recidivism, though studies on the use of electronic monitors to reduce repeat offenses have produced mixed results.^[18]

Ankle and wrist monitors

radio frequency (RF) ankle monitors are often used for curfew compliance with juveniles or individuals considered low risk for criminal behavior. In addition to wearing an ankle monitor, the individual sets up a separate monitoring unit at home. The unit can be programmed to detect an ankle or wrist monitor within a short range of 50 to 150 feet in order to send a message to a staffed monitoring station. The supervising officer can establish a person's schedule, requiring the individual to follow a daily routine, and ensuring that alerts are sent when the individual veers from the schedule or tampers with the ankle monitor.^[19]

Higher risk offenders, such as sex offenders and domestic abusers, are more likely to wear a water and impact-resistant electronic monitoring (EM) device using global positioning system satellites (GPS) for minute by minute tracking purposes. The GPS system triangulates communication between the individual user, the software and a supervising officer checking a monitor.^[20] The ankle device runs on batteries to be charged once or twice a day and utilizes commercial cellular networks to transmit data points^[21] and location information anywhere in the world.^[22] Probation officers can program and map exclusion zones, where individuals are prohibited from entering, lest they set off an alert to their probation officer and risk a technical violation of their probation. Exclusion zones for sex offenders may include day care centers or schools.^[23] Supervising officers can also program buffer zones within a certain radius of a prohibited area, so an alarm will sound if the monitored individual approaches an exclusion zone.^[24]

Some ankle monitors are equipped to call and record people without warning.^[25] Others have microphones and speakers to record conversations that could be used in criminal cases, depending on state law.^[26]

While active GPS tracking allows for triangulation in transmittal of information, passive GPS tracking stores data that can be downloaded for a future time.^[27]

According to a study conducted by the East Bay Community Law Center of juveniles subjected to electronic monitoring in 58 California counties, any deviation from a daily schedule of school and work required the electronically monitored juvenile to seek permission from a supervising officer 24 hours to a week in advance of the schedule change.^[28] For adults under house arrest or other geographical restrictions, they may be prohibited from going grocery shopping, attending a child's school event, going to a beauty salon or washing clothes at a laundromat.^[29]

African Americans are more likely than whites to choose prison over electronic monitoring, though reasons for the preference are unclear.^[30] Probation officers report African Americans view electronic monitoring as more restrictive than white people perceive it.^[31]

Should an individual try to remove or succeed in removing an electronic device, consequences could include jail, prison time, fines or a tightening of the ankle monitor.^[32]

A male going only by the name of Christopher told the Marshall Project, a non-profit news service focused on criminal justice, that he had to wear an ankle monitor from the time he was 13, until he was 18, after having committed violations of his probation. In describing the monitor, Christopher said:

It was a black box with thick straps, and it weighed 3 pounds, which made walking kind of hard. At first, they put it on me loose, not skin-tight, which meant it would slam around whenever I exercised. But then some kids, apparently, started slipping the thing off, and so they brought us all in for tightening; they cinched it up right against my skin. I couldn’t wear high-top shoes anymore. It dug into me. I still have the scar.^[33]

Smartphones with biometric security systems

Proponents of using smartphones to track and constrain an individual through fingerprints, facial recognition and voice verification tout the cell phone's capability to integrate several features: Internet access; touchscreen interface; camera and video recording; location mapping and other applications.^[34] The tracking applications known as Smart-LINK and Shadowtrack^[35] may be installed on the individual's personal cellphone, referred to as a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), or integrated into a cell phone law enforcement buys or leases from a vendor and then assigns to an individual upon their release into the community. The American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) supports the use of smart phones for surveillance because the organization believes the cell phone, with its calendar feature, cuts down on technical violations in which an offender misses an appointment with a probation officer.

Automobile ignition interlock device

The California Department of Motor Vehicles describes an automobile ignition interlock device (IID) as a device the size of a cell phone that is wired to your car or truck's' ignition to require an individual to offer a breath sample before the engine will start. If the sample is not satisfactory or indicates alcohol consumption, the engine will not ignite. Periodic breath samples are required during a driver's route to ensure the driver is not stopping to drink along the way.^[36]

SCRAM

Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) in the form of a wrist band or hand-held device may be used to sample a client's breath and perspiration every 30 minutes to report blood alcohol level to a supervising officer.^[37] One SCRAM vendor advertises a "wireless, portable breath alcohol device with automated facial recognition and GPS with every single test."^[38]

Automated Parole or probation check-in platforms

In the early 1990s, New York City piloted 16 automated probation check-in machines, also known as probation kiosks, with each $750,000 kiosk featuring a video screen, keypad and infrared scanner for low-risk offenders to answer questions as to whether they had been re-arrested, obtained a job or needed counseling. By 2004, after a budget-strained NYC deemed the kiosk program a success, reducing costs while freeing probation officers to meet personally with priority high-risk offenders, the automated check-in centers were instituted for 30,000 offenders. By 2015, 70% of the city's probation population was expected to use the automated kiosks.^[39][40]

ION Wearable

ION Wearable was launched in 2021, and features a discreet wearable that can measure transdermal alcohol continuously, paired with a smartphone app to view data and send automatically generated reports. The sensor is based on patented^[41] and peer-reviewed^[42] enzymatic cartridge technology. Readings report alcohol consumption as 'clear' or 'signal detected', and the built-in skin proximity sensors can measure that the wearable is being worn continuously with an 'insufficient skin contact' if the wearable is removed. ION Wearable is being marketed to individuals wishing to rebuild trust after a DUI, custody case, or wanting to rebuild trust through connected support and accountability in the app.

National Institute of Justice evaluation: Florida

A 2001 National Institute of Justice study of 5,000 medium- and high-risk offenders in Florida who were placed under electronic supervision found a 31% decrease in the recidivism rate over a six-year period when compared with 266,000 offenders under other types of community supervision. Researchers from Florida State University's Center on Criminology and Public Policy Research also concluded that electronic monitoring based on Global Positioning Systems (GPS) produced better results than radio frequency (RF) systems, but that electronic monitoring, regardless of type, had less of an impact on violent offenders than others.^[61]

Researchers worked with the Florida Department of Corrections to interview local probation officers and over a hundred offenders. A majority of offenders said they felt ashamed to wear an electronic monitoring device and complained of stigmatization in a society in which ankle monitors are associated with sex criminals. Researchers interviewed one offender who described the electronic monitoring device as a "scarlet letter" of public humiliation, while another confided that each time the device's alarm went off, the offender thought the police were en route to make an arrest; still another worried about the message the ankle monitor sent to his child. "I’ve got a child who straps a watch on his ankle to be like daddy.”^[61]

Center of Juvenile and Criminal Justice: Indiana

In a 2006-2009 Indiana study of 293 subjects from 18 to 71 years, divided into two groups, those who had completed the Electronic Monitoring House Detention (EMHD) program and those who had not, researchers found the "odds of one recidivating after their release were two times higher for those who had successfully completed the EMHD program compared to the subjects who hadn't completed the program. The study also showed, however, that older and more educated offenders had a lower recidivism rate.^[62]

National Institute of Justice evaluation: California

Studies of sex offenders and gang members

In the mid to late 2000's, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) launched two pilot programs, one with sex offenders, the other with gang offenders, to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic monitors to reduce recidivism and encourage compliance with parole appointments.

In the sex-offender study involving 516 offenders divided evenly into a treatment and control group, researchers concluded the GPS monitors worked: offenders under GPS supervision were three times less likely to commit a sex crime violation as those who were not electronically monitored but met with parole officers.

In contrast, the gang study involving 392 offenders in a treatment group and 392 offenders in a control group concluded the odds of a technical violation were 36 percent greater among the gang offenders on electronic monitoring, though the GPS group was 26% less likely to be re-arrested than the group supervised by in-person parole officers.^[64]

Jefferson County, Kentucky

In 2000, researchers Robert Stanz and Richard Tewksbury studied a cohort of offenders sentenced to house arrest in Jefferson County, KY. A majority who completed the electronic monitoring program were also rearrested within 5 years after house arrest ended. Of the 85% of offenders who completed the program, 69% of them were rearrested relatively shortly after they were released.^[65]

Alcohol Ignition Interlock Devices

Researcher Beirness and Marques (2004) summarized evaluations of the effectiveness of AUD programs for those arrested for driving under the influence in the United States and Canada. The effectiveness of AUD's was temporary, lasting for the duration of the AUD installation. While interlocks during their installation reduced alcohol-impaired driving recidivism in half when compared to similar offenders without the interlocks, recidivism increased once the AUD's were removed, resulting in similar recidivism rates between those who did and those who did not have AUD's installed.^[66][67]

GPS and workplace raids

On August 24, 2019, the Miami Herald reported ICE—in a departure from the past—had gathered data from immigrants' GPS ankle monitors to locate workplaces employing migrant labor and then raid those workplaces, arresting nearly 700 employees earlier that month at seven Mississippi food processing plants in what was described as the "biggest single-day, one-state sweep in U.S. history."^[72]

COVID-19 EM releases

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE released more detainees, many with electronic ankle monitors, to avoid further outbreaks in crowded detention facilities where to "increase social distancing, detainees are locked in their cells for as long as 23 hours a day." In April 2020, the inmate population at ICE detention centers dropped from a daily average of 50,000^[73] to 32,300 people, the lowest number of detainees during the Trump administration.^[74]

Individual fees

The U.S. government assumes the cost of electronic monitors for some federal prisoners and detainees,^[35] though states and cities often require an individual wearing an electronic monitor to pay rental and battery fees, which for James Brooks, an Alameda County, CA. resident arrested for driving under the influence, led him to file a class action lawsuit against the county and its private electronic monitoring contractor. Brooks sued them for allegedly extorting him, threatening to send him back to jail if he didn't pay his electronic monitoring fees, which ran as high as $13 a day or $400 per month with an enrollment fee of $150.00 and a default charge of $25.50 per day.^[59] Rental fees for ankle monitoring can range from $5 to $25 per day. In Kentucky, law enforcement can put an individual back in jail after missing three payments.^[75]

While some probation offices and county law enforcers operate their own electronic monitoring programs^[76] — renting the ankle monitors from manufacturers, hiring employees and collecting money from the person monitored, others, like Alameda County, have outsourced oversight of defendants, parolees and probationers to private for-profit companies. One suburb north of Seattle, MountLake Terrace, reportedly profits off ankle monitoring, charging the individual monitored far more than the cost of the private contract fees, netting the suburb an extra $50,000 per year.^[77]

Federal, state and local savings

In 2012 the Urban Institute of the District of Columbia Crime Policy Institute compared the costs of incarcerating an individual in a brick and mortar institution with electronic monitoring. The Institute found that EM reduced costs to local agencies—counties, law enforcement—by an average of $580 per individual, while saving the federal government $920 per individual.^[78]

In 2014, the American Correctional Association estimated the cost of EM was $35.96 per day compared to $129 per night in a prison or jail.^[79]

EM as a business

According to the Center for Media Justice, a few large corporations — among them the GEO Group, one of the largest for-profit detention center operators — generate annual revenue of $200 million providing electronic monitoring devices for people on parole or probation in 30 states.^[1] Another company, Libre by Nexus, will post a cash bond to release an immigrant from detention, and then upon release charge the individual a daily fee to wear the company's electronic device, the price of which does not defray the cost of the bond. Securus, the country's largest prison telephone service, sold for $1.5 billion in 2017 to Platinum Equity, operates several electronic monitoring companies.^[80]