Proponents say the devices have helped address inequities in the criminal justice system. But many defendants have experienced unintended consequences.
In the heat of an argument last spring, Khyla Mason raised a handgun into the air on a neighbor’s porch. She was acting in self-defense, she said, and never fired, but the confrontation was captured on video, and some children were nearby. Ms. Mason wound up in a St. Louis jail charged with unlawful use of a weapon.
Just a few years ago, someone facing the same charge in St. Louis was likely to pay a small bond and resume life as usual until trial, local attorneys said. But Ms. Mason, who was then 21, was released from jail with a box the size of a deck of cards strapped to her right ankle. It tracked her every move.
For weeks, the device alerted officials each time she missed her court-imposed curfew or left her house without approval. Sometimes, she was buying food or diapers for her 2-year-old son, or taking him to the hospital, she said. After more than two dozen violations, she was sent back to jail.
She remained there for a month.
More and more defendants across the country are being placed on electronic monitors, part of an ambitious effort to prevent overcrowding in the nation’s jails and keep people from being imprisoned while awaiting trial for minor offenses.
Like courts in Baltimore, Dallas and Los Angeles, the St. Louis city circuit court is among those that have embraced electronic monitoring as a powerful reform of the cash bail system. The number of new monitors activated here more than doubled from the first half of 2021 to the first half of 2024, when it surpassed 550, a New York Times analysis found.
The article is pointing out the restrictions the GPS monitors bring. And it seems that the GPS monitor violations, send more people back to jail than prevent them from being in jail. They should come up to Wisconsin. I was one of the ones put on lifetime GPS back in September of 2018. And between that time and April 2021 when I finished extended supervision, I returned to jail twice on GPS malfunctions. One, while my parents were away on vacation overseas and I was taking care of the cats. For 5 days the cats were alone with no food. Between September 2018, and when they finally removed it in August 2023, I wore 19 different units. And since having the units returned due to the new law, in May of 2024 to now, I have had 11 different units and three different restraps, as they keep on having strap errors. So in the last 7 years of wearing them, I have worn 30 different units! And of course Wisconsin charges me $240 a month to wear it! So who’s getting rich off of me wearing these GPS units? And do these GPS units prevent me from doing my crime again? My only crime is possession of CP. Computer crime! But I have no monitoring software! Don’t give them any ideas! They always seem to find ways to make money off of us!
In conclusion, the d*mn thing has the same stigma and effect as a registry entry seen publicly…
“Research has also shown that electronic monitoring can lead to isolation and prejudice from landlords and employers, said Kate Weisburd, an expert on surveillance and technology who teaches at U.C. Law San Francisco. She raised further concerns about privacy.
“As there is a growing appetite to end incarceration, there’s this knee-jerk reaction to want to substitute incarceration with something,” she said. “We can’t just strip people of their privacy rights the moment they are arrested for a crime.””
“National proponents of electronic monitoring like Carl Wicklund, a former executive director of the American Probation and Parole Association, continue to see the value in the system. But Mr. Wicklund said that people with the devices must be able to hold jobs, secure housing and be involved with their families, churches and communities.
Without those things, he said, defendants become “higher risk, because they have nothing to lose.””
“At first, the initiative drew criticism because of how it was funded: The private company running the program charged defendants installation and surveillance fees, and those who could not afford those fees could be sent back to jail.” – Essentially a debtors prison sentence when debtor prisons are illegal in this country.
Excellent article. The conclusions throughout are the same for the registry. How does one quantify the public’s safety? Is it truly any better or worse when it comes to those who wear these when it comes to safety? I doubt it. Nothing is 100% unless the data set is dead and buried because then, the data set cannot be a potentially alleged harm.
Stanford U helped write this article for the Old Grey Lady and should be consulted further for more efforts to set CA straight when it comes to their legal thinking.
Man, I had those cheeseheads running ragged when I had my first unit strapped on. The signal would go out, and my PO would say the sheriff had a warrant out for my arrest. Then my PO would scramble to get the warrant removed. And then she’d tell me to stick around the house, but I wasn’t going nowhere in the middle of covid. LEOs never came around. They don’t like coming to the hood for something like that. Techs don’t like coming either. I remember one boy was nervous & looking around on my porch as he was stooping down to fit my ankle bracelet. I told him North Milwaukee is like Mayberry, LOL!! The first unit I had was cylinder shaped and held the charge for only 10-12 hours. Then Wisconsin SORP offered a better unit where one can switch the batteries out and set one of them aside into a cradle to be charged. Therefore, I could go about my day without being hooked up to a cord for 2 hours. Then Wisconsin SORP switched ankle bracelet companies. I had different techs & a different model. This model was clunkier but kept the charge up to 20 hours. But the cord shorted out & f*cked up a lot. Over 3 years, I wore 3 different models, and went through 12 replacements 🤭 But that’s okay, because they never got a red cent from me. Between incarceration, health-care needs, probation, therapy, monitoring–I must have left Wisconsin with a quarter million-dollar bill…LOL!!..just for pictures on my computer. F*ck the Badger State!
Nothing like an ankle monitor having tech issues , locating you in places you’ve never been, causing bruising or nerve damage, and being tracked like you aren’t human. Treat human beings like humans and not livestock waiting for the slaughterhouse.