Intial Post

Welcome, my name is Todd Edwards and I am the President of Reliant Management Group, Inc., a criminal justice management company located in Raleigh, North Carolina (NC). With over 550 supervision slots currently under contract in 19 counties, Reliant is the regional leader in the operation of county-funded electronic monitoring (EM) programs for pretrial criminal defendants and nonpayors of child support.

Issue...
The current reality in almost any county or court jurisdiction in NC (or America for that matter) is that jail overcrowding is adversely impacting the local budget and is increasingly competing with public dollars that are desperately needed to meet education, human services, and infrastructure demands. If you do not think it's a problem, then I encourage you to have a frank conversation with someone on your local county board of commisioners, your county manager, or your sheriff. More and more, it is an issue that is on the collective radars of local officals and will only increase in importance in the future.

What this blog is...
The purpose of this blog is to create a space where monitoring technology solutions to address the growing problem of jail overcrowding will be preiodically discussed with an eye towards finding policy solutions that are both effective and affordable.

Approach...
> I plan to occasionally offer thoughts on the use of monitoring technology in the governmental and public safety sectors. And from time to time, I will also include [and comment on] new research or current news stories that may advance our collective knowledge in this arena.

> Finally, I invite readers to send me an email. I would appreciate it if you would tell me just a little about yourself, your work, and your interest in the use of monitoring technologies in order to alleviate jail overcrowding or improve community supervision..

Qualifiers...
1) In order to keep things simple, the general term "alternatives to detention" will represent both community supervision and court-based rehabilitation services. In cases where the distinctions and variations of each need to be drawn in order to further discussion, this will be done in a straightforward manner.

2) When the terms detention and jail are used within this blog, they are referencing individuals awaiting trial or serving a shorter-term sentence in your local jail. The vast majority of discussion herein is regarding how to use monitoring technology to supervise and deal with nonviolent criminal defendants in the community, as well as, those that have not even been found guilty at the point of the incarceration. You will also note a substantial amount of discussion regarding the cyclical incarceration of nonviolent, non-payors of child support and how it is exacerbating the local jail overcrowding problem.

Conclusion...
OK enough of all that setup, I sincerely hope you find this site and the information contained herein useful. Please feel free to visit as often as you like and contact me via email with any constructive feedback. Thanks.