More Defendants Could Stay Out Of Prison Through Expanded Electronic Monitoring Program

Smartphone technology has led to a boom in digital surveillance of pretrial and post-conviction populations nationwide, but also raised privacy and civil rights concerns.

By Matthew Leonard / March 13, 2024

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The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is in early talks with the Hawaii Judiciary to expand the use of electronic monitoring and keep more defendants out of prison while awaiting trial.

“We have no problem with expanding electronic monitoring and look forward to doing so, to not just reduce our pretrial prison population, but to allow a lot of people to remain productive members in the community,” Tommy Johnson, the department’s director, said.

The department used GPS ankle bracelet technology to monitor 49 defendants on pretrial release in 2022 and 35 in 2023, according to its own reporting. It did not track how long the monitors were in use.

The most recent state contract for electronic monitoring with Sentinel Offender Services for $85,340 expires at the end of May. The contract was for the supply of the OM500 GPS ankle-worn bracelet, which uses GPS satellite technology to track the location of the wearer. (Courtesy: Sentinel/Omnilink/2024)

It would be up to the courts to decide how many defendants might stay in the community before their trials, but the program could be expanded quickly. “We have a few units on the shelf now, and we can have additional units in place within 24 to 48 hours,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he had an informal conversation with one judge already and would be reaching out to the chief judge of each circuit to discuss the idea.

Johnson said he wanted the courts to be aware that monitoring was available as an option and it would make more sense for non-violent offenders who don’t pose a risk to the community to — as much as possible — be left in the community under supervision with electronic monitoring.

The use of electronic monitoring has continued to increase nationally since the pandemic, prompting warnings from some legal researchers that rather than being a humane alternative to custody, the technology punishes people who haven’t been proven guilty or have otherwise qualified for release.

'Alternative To Incarceration'

Proponents argue monitoring technology benefits users by keeping them out of prison, reducing the stigma of traditional long-term supervision and limiting the disruption to family and work. It's also intended to allow supervisors to better manage caseloads and reduce the need for in-person visits.

Hawaii's criminal justice system has been gradually ramping up its use of electronic monitoring over the past seven years, particularly since Covid-19.

The number of adults in Hawaii on electronic monitoring grew from 18 in 2017 -- the earliest data available -- to 175 in 2022 and 85 in 2023.

Tommy Johnson, director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, is in talks with the state Judiciary over potentially expanding the use of electronic monitoring for defendants awaiting trial for non-violent offenses. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023)

Those figures are a total of the individuals on pretrial release, probation and specialty court monitoring programs for drug, alcohol and sex offenses.

In some states, technology can cost individuals between $900 and $1200 a month. But Johnson said the department currently carries the cost of using "passive" GPS ankle bracelets and that the cost is negligible compared to the $260-a-day cost of keeping someone incarcerated.

The cost to the individual is about $3.50 per day, he said.

Several legislative efforts to expand the use of electronic monitoring for non-violent offenses and parolees have fallen flat, including a 2016 Senate bill supported by state Sen. Mike Gabbard that would have expanded a pilot monitoring program for prisoners on furlough.

That bill, aimed at reducing overcrowding in the state's prisons, estimated that up to 15% of the prison population could be monitored by ankle bracelets or other technology in the future.

"Electronic monitoring isn't a perfect solution, but done with care it can help protect public safety and reduce the cost of putting these people in prison,” Gabbard said in an email.

'Electronic Prisons'

The most recent count of individuals subject to electronic monitoring in the United States showed a close to tenfold increase between 2005 and 2022, according to recent research by the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice.

The study found that in 2021, over 250,000 individuals in the country were subject to some form of electronic monitoring.

Smartphones have been a transformative technology for mass supervision, according to Vera's analysis -- almost 90% of digital monitoring by Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now done via an app called SmartLINK.

Hawaii has yet to adopt monitoring programs that use smartphone technology, but Johnson said he was supportive of "any technology that would provide a supervising agency with additional methods with which to track the offenders."

However, legal researchers are warning there are significant personal and legal risks associated with the expanded use of smartphone technology provided by for-profit private corporations.

Ankle monitors use GPS technology monitored by a third party to track the location of the wearer. This is the most common form of monitoring in use in Hawaii but smartphone applications are widely used elsewhere. (U.S. Government Accountability Office/2016)

These include concerns over how the personal data they collect is used, a lack of privacy safeguards and overly restrictive compliance conditions.

"This can create gray areas that can lead to reincarceration, if people aren't sure of the conditions, or the supervising officers have too much discretion to interpret violations of electronic monitoring," Vera Institute researcher Jess Zhang said.

Cellphone monitoring apps, which involve active participation by the user, are also prone to technical glitches including issues with cell coverage, recharging, logins and false notifications, researchers found.

Johnson said that he was not aware of any instances of serious faults with the GPS technology used in Hawaii.

In some jurisdictions, the expansion of electronic monitoring has been meteoric. Los Angeles County saw a more than 5,000% increase between 2015 and 2021 for individuals on pretrial release.

A UCLA Law School analysis of people under pretrial electronic supervision in LA County found that only 45% of people in the program in 2020 completed it successfully. "Non-compliance" or technical violations were the reasons for nearly all terminations from the program rather than absconding or engaging in new criminal activity, the researchers found.

There has been little accompanying research on whether electronic monitoring has reduced recidivism for those released post-conviction, according to the National Institute of Justice.

Bureau of Prisons data showed prison and jail populations in the country increased between 2021 and 2022 by between 2% and 4% respectively.