Electronic monitoring in the United States
Electronic monitoring or electronic incarceration (e-carceration) is state use of digital technology to monitor, track and constrain an individual's movements outside of a prison, jail or detention center. Common examples of electronic monitoring of individuals under pre-trial or immigrant detention, house arrest, on probation or parole include: GPS wrist and ankle monitors, cellphones with biometric security systems, ignition interlock devices and automated probation check-in centers or kiosks.[1]
The use of electronic monitoring has increased considerably in recent years in the United States.[2]
Economics[edit]
Individual fees[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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]