About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

78 Fed. Probation 19 (2014)
Location Monitoring for Low-Risk Inmates - A Cost Effective and Evidence-Based Reentry Strategy

handle is hein.journals/fedpro78 and id is 21 raw text is: June 2014 19 * atsA CotEfetv and Trent Cornish and Jay Whetzel Probation Administrators, Probation and Pretrial Services Office Administrative Office of the US. Courts COMMUNTY CORRECTIONS' CENTRAL focus during the past decade has been the adoption of evidence-based practices. Federal community corrections has been no excep- tion to this trend. Promising research has renewed interest in the possibility of reduced recidivism through offender behavior change. Simultaneously, at the local, state, and fed- eral level, decision-makers have realized that seemingly ever-growing inmate populations and budgetary pressures have become unsus- tainable. Thus the possibility of reducing recidivism and costs by shifting resources away from incarceration to community-based correctional solutions has prompted innova- tion. It is in this environment that the federal location monitoring program has recently been re-conceptualized. Central to evidence-based practice in cor- rections are the principles of risk, need, and responsivity. As articulated by Andrews and Bonta,1 the first of these, the risk principle, posits that we should focus our interventions on higher-risk offenders, who are the most likely to realize a reduction in recidivism. The risk principle further emphasizes that exposing lower-risk offenders to unneeded interventions can actually make them more likely to recidivate, both through exposing them to higher-risk peers and by attenuating pro-social ties. The risk principle underlies the need to differentiate any correctional popu- lation by risk level. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has done that for decades, specifi- cally relying on its Security and Designation instrument, an actuarial risk prediction tool Andrews, D., & Bonta, J. (2010). The psychology of criminal conduct, 5th ed. New Providence, NJ: Anderson Publishing. that informs initial designation and ongoing re-assessment of the security risk posed by each of the BOP's 215,000 inmates. Currently, the BOP identifies 17.4 percent of its 215,000 inmates as posing a minimum security risk. Nearly 40 percent of inmates are designated as low risk.2 According to the federal pro- bation system's risk assessment tool, the Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA), approx- imately 40 percent of federal offenders are at low risk to recidivate. Background Use of home confinement with federal offenders was introduced in 1986, when the United States Parole Commission and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) experimented with the Curfew Parole Program. Driven by deficit reduction legisla- tion, the program relied on officers conducting curfew telephone calls and having weekly in-person contacts. The ability of officers to adequately monitor offenders became a con- cern. In a 1988 pilot study between the BOP and the AO, the first offender was released on curfew parole with electronic monitor- ing. In 1989, the federal Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law expanded the program to 12 districts and also authorized electronic monitoring for federal offenders on supervised release and pretrial defendants. The program expanded nationally in 1991. The first national contract for services was 2 According to the BOP website February 27, 2014, the inmate population is 215,482, of whom 36,134 (17.4 percent) are designated as at a minimum security level. Additionally, 82,550, or 39.8 percent, are rated at a low security level. awarded in 1993 (Guide to Judiciary Policy, Vol. 8; Part F; Sec. 150; hereafter, Guide). Over time, the breadth of technologies for monitoring offenders remotely greatly expanded, including the ability to track offenders beyond just determining if they were inside their residence. In 2009, the home confinement program was renamed the location monitoring program to reflect the full array of technologies available in the program.' The program now provides officers with greater options for mitigating offender risks, providing supervision struc- ture, and detecting various patterns of behavior. The variety of technologies helps officers better allocate their resources, avoid- ing over-supervising low-risk offenders or under-supervising higher-risk offenders (Guide, Vol. 8: Part F, Sec. 160). There are many misconceptions about what location monitoring can and cannot do. The technology does not allow officers to intercept bad behavior before it happens. It does, however, provide a wealth of information about patterns of behavior that can be used to address offenders' accountability and improve supervision (Guide, Vol. 8; Part F. Sec. 415). Location monitoring should be viewed as an opportunity to remove and limit opportunities ' Current technologies include automated voice verification systems, for low-risk offenders; radio frequency systems that confirm an offender's pres- ence at an authorized location; passive global positioning systems that record offenders' locations and later download tracking data; and active global positioning systems that provide continuous track- ing and allow for inclusion and exclusion zones. Additional systems have the ability to remotely monitor an offender's alcohol use, either through breath samples or through transdermal collection.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most