jnv512
08-29-2002, 02:09 PM
AROUND THE ISLAND CRIME & COURTS LAW AND ORDER
Using Higher Tech To Monitor Offenders
Zachary R. Dowdy
August 28, 2002
Nassau County Probation Director John Carway prides his department on keeping close tabs on its charges, 7,200 men and women whose debts to society have not yet been paid but who roam the county virtually unencumbered until their terms end.
Now, for probationers who require tighter reins, the department will be literally watching them from space with the help of satellite stations - a tool already being used by federal law enforcement.
A high-tech bracelet strapped to an offender's leg or arm allows dozens of satellites that hover above the Earth to follow a subject anywhere on the planet.
Nassau probation officials are ready to use a global positioning system to track high-risk probationers, such as sex offenders, as a tool when an offender is released from prison or when a probationer's supervision needs to be ratcheted up a notch.
"It's another tool where you can tell where a person is," Carway said. "On a real-time basis you can track a person, see exactly where they're going and you can draw circles around a place where they're not allowed to be, like a school."
Global positioning systems complement older electronic bracelets, which have been in use for decades.
The system's components, the global positioning unit, satellite and monitoring center exchange information to plot a subject's whereabouts on a map accessed through the Internet.
The monitoring center may contact authorities and the victim if the subject goes somewhere prohibited or tampers with the monitoring device.
State officials tout electronic bracelets as an alternative to incarceration or a more stringent form of probation and parole, which consist mainly of face-to-face visits with authorities periodically.
Regular electronic bracelets have no satellite component and don't allow officers to "see" where an offender is, but they do sound an alarm when offenders venture out of a defined area.
"It is an enhancement of supervision to assist local probation in monitoring certain individuals - juveniles to help monitor curfews, [or] driving while intoxicated cases and home assessment," said Scott Steinhardt, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, in Albany.
One study by that department examining electronic monitoring in Monroe, Niagara and Onondaga counties, concluded that "the use of electronic monitoring with juvenile delinquents is clearly a viable local alternative to [group] home placement." The study, completed in February, tracked 115 juveniles over 23 months.
Researchers estimated the counties saved between $97,000 and $110,000 because electronic bracelets cost a few dollars a day per participant. Group homes would cost about $200 per day per participant.
It can be used for a variety of purposes: pretrial detention, parole or probation, as a drug or alcohol treatment enhancer or a to keep track of offenders during jail release programs.
Electronic monitoring was introduced in 1964, when officials in Massachusetts sought a technological tool to keep track of parolees, mentally ill patients and, as an experiment, research volunteers in Boston and Cambridge, Mass. The equipment they used - the project required them to carry a heavy box - is light years behind the sleek pieces used in today's global positioning system.
On Long Island, the federal government's version of parole has placed two stalkers under the new system.
"Our home confinement program is very successful," said Andrew Bobbe, deputy chief of probation for the federal government on Long Island. "It is both punishment and it can be rehabilitative in terms of restricting someone's access to getting drugs."
Bobbe said the Long Island district is probably the only federal jurisdiction using the global positioning system right now but that electronic monitoring has been used nationwide for about 15 years.
Judges must approve their use.
Herb Hoelter, founder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives based in Alexandria, Va., said the technology should be used more often.
"From having dealt with probation departments and courts, most defendants who get electronic monitoring feel like they have been given a second chance and aren't willing to violate that and subject themselves to prison terms," Hoelter said.
Despite rave reviews today and high hopes at its inception, electronic monitoring is still relatively uncommon in Nassau and Suffolk. Nationally, only 3 percent of the correctional population are so "tethered," as some corrections officials call it.
Vincent Iaria, director of probation for Suffolk, said there are now 43 people on bracelets in Suffolk, 35 from family court, primarily teenagers, and eight adults from criminal court. None of them are monitored by global positioning systems.
In Nassau, there are about 20 offenders, all adults and primarily DWI cases, on electronic bracelets. Officials are poised to place a sex offender on the global positioning system, said John Fowle, supervisor of the probation department's sex offender and domestic violence unit.
The cost to the county is under $5 a day per unit, Carway said, adding that the cash-strapped county could use such inexpensive cost-saving measures.
Iaria called electronic monitoring "a useful tool, but it needs to be backed up with staffing. You need a quick response to violations."
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.
Using Higher Tech To Monitor Offenders
Zachary R. Dowdy
August 28, 2002
Nassau County Probation Director John Carway prides his department on keeping close tabs on its charges, 7,200 men and women whose debts to society have not yet been paid but who roam the county virtually unencumbered until their terms end.
Now, for probationers who require tighter reins, the department will be literally watching them from space with the help of satellite stations - a tool already being used by federal law enforcement.
A high-tech bracelet strapped to an offender's leg or arm allows dozens of satellites that hover above the Earth to follow a subject anywhere on the planet.
Nassau probation officials are ready to use a global positioning system to track high-risk probationers, such as sex offenders, as a tool when an offender is released from prison or when a probationer's supervision needs to be ratcheted up a notch.
"It's another tool where you can tell where a person is," Carway said. "On a real-time basis you can track a person, see exactly where they're going and you can draw circles around a place where they're not allowed to be, like a school."
Global positioning systems complement older electronic bracelets, which have been in use for decades.
The system's components, the global positioning unit, satellite and monitoring center exchange information to plot a subject's whereabouts on a map accessed through the Internet.
The monitoring center may contact authorities and the victim if the subject goes somewhere prohibited or tampers with the monitoring device.
State officials tout electronic bracelets as an alternative to incarceration or a more stringent form of probation and parole, which consist mainly of face-to-face visits with authorities periodically.
Regular electronic bracelets have no satellite component and don't allow officers to "see" where an offender is, but they do sound an alarm when offenders venture out of a defined area.
"It is an enhancement of supervision to assist local probation in monitoring certain individuals - juveniles to help monitor curfews, [or] driving while intoxicated cases and home assessment," said Scott Steinhardt, a spokesman for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, in Albany.
One study by that department examining electronic monitoring in Monroe, Niagara and Onondaga counties, concluded that "the use of electronic monitoring with juvenile delinquents is clearly a viable local alternative to [group] home placement." The study, completed in February, tracked 115 juveniles over 23 months.
Researchers estimated the counties saved between $97,000 and $110,000 because electronic bracelets cost a few dollars a day per participant. Group homes would cost about $200 per day per participant.
It can be used for a variety of purposes: pretrial detention, parole or probation, as a drug or alcohol treatment enhancer or a to keep track of offenders during jail release programs.
Electronic monitoring was introduced in 1964, when officials in Massachusetts sought a technological tool to keep track of parolees, mentally ill patients and, as an experiment, research volunteers in Boston and Cambridge, Mass. The equipment they used - the project required them to carry a heavy box - is light years behind the sleek pieces used in today's global positioning system.
On Long Island, the federal government's version of parole has placed two stalkers under the new system.
"Our home confinement program is very successful," said Andrew Bobbe, deputy chief of probation for the federal government on Long Island. "It is both punishment and it can be rehabilitative in terms of restricting someone's access to getting drugs."
Bobbe said the Long Island district is probably the only federal jurisdiction using the global positioning system right now but that electronic monitoring has been used nationwide for about 15 years.
Judges must approve their use.
Herb Hoelter, founder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives based in Alexandria, Va., said the technology should be used more often.
"From having dealt with probation departments and courts, most defendants who get electronic monitoring feel like they have been given a second chance and aren't willing to violate that and subject themselves to prison terms," Hoelter said.
Despite rave reviews today and high hopes at its inception, electronic monitoring is still relatively uncommon in Nassau and Suffolk. Nationally, only 3 percent of the correctional population are so "tethered," as some corrections officials call it.
Vincent Iaria, director of probation for Suffolk, said there are now 43 people on bracelets in Suffolk, 35 from family court, primarily teenagers, and eight adults from criminal court. None of them are monitored by global positioning systems.
In Nassau, there are about 20 offenders, all adults and primarily DWI cases, on electronic bracelets. Officials are poised to place a sex offender on the global positioning system, said John Fowle, supervisor of the probation department's sex offender and domestic violence unit.
The cost to the county is under $5 a day per unit, Carway said, adding that the cash-strapped county could use such inexpensive cost-saving measures.
Iaria called electronic monitoring "a useful tool, but it needs to be backed up with staffing. You need a quick response to violations."
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.