Reliant's Recent Participation in International Electronic Monitoring Conference

From October 5-7, 2010, I was honored to travel to France in order to participate in an excellent International Electronic Monitoring Conference sponsored by global electronic monitoring leader, Elmotech. With delegates representing 15 nations in attendance, I was invited to serve as a representative for the USA and to participate in several informative work-sessions. Interacting and networking with so many distinguished security and monitoring professionals from around the world was a distinct privilege and a professional experience that I will not soon forget.

At any given time, every nation employing electronic monitoring (not to mention its professional monitoring service providers) is faced with unique and substantial challenges - whether legislative, risk-management, or operational in nature. For me, it is clearer than ever that those of us who work in and represent this industry have much more in common than not - regardless of our country of origin. I left the conference revitalized and returned to the USA with a deep and renewed respect for my electronic monitoring colleagues in other parts of the world. Additionally, I have made a personal commitment to do considerably more to both learn from them - and share information with them - on a going forward basis.

Reliant's Recent Participation in National Webinar for Child Support Practitioners

On September 14, 2010, I was honored to participate in a national webinar for Child Support Enforcement and Judicial officials, sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services (Office of Child Support Enforcement). The topic was entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Electronic House Arrest" and I was privileged to present equipment, technical and programmatic information regarding the use of electronic monitoring as a tool in the child support enforcement arena - in support of Judges Kristin Ruth (Wake Co. NC) and Mike Thiele (Genesee Co. MI). The webinar appears to have been well-received and reviewd by both session particpants and practioners in the field. If you would like to view a recorded "re-play" of the webinar, I have included the link below...

http://www.childsupportandthecourt.org/multimedia/videos/webinar3

GPS - How Does It Actually Work?

Hows exactly does GPS work? This is a question we seem to get more and more as pretrial programs and law enforcement agencies consider using this technology within the community supervision arena. It is a reasonable question given that applying the use of GPS in the public safety arena really is quite different from using a Garmin or TomTom device in your car for navigation or finding a Starbucks.

First, it's probably important to distinguish the differences in the GPS equipment. The GPS equipment we use in the criminal justice arena includes a more robust design/packaging and carries on-board the necessary cellular communication capabilities, tamper-sensors, schedule/zone regimnens, alert indicators and other security measures. But that is the visible side of the equation and still does not explain how the device really interacts with the GPS satellites. There are many detailed explanations out there...so I will just offer up a simple summary:

Fixing the position of the GPS device being worn by the defendant depends upon it receiving signals from 4 or more of the 24 satellites revolving around the earth at any time. Years ago, these satellites were placed in a constellation by the US Department of Defense and have highly accurate atomic clocks onboard, as well as, predictable orbits and relationships to each other in the sky. The signals from the satellites are constantly broadcasting their position and the exact time the signal was sent. So the GPS device on the monitored person then uses the timing signals it is receiving (and the precise time on earth where it is located) to determine how long it took the satellites' signals to travel to the GPS device. With that timing information in-hand the GPS device then only needs to determine where the satellites are positioned (in their orbit and in relation to each other) in order to calculate the monitored person's exact position through a form of triangulation. Because the GPS device stores on-board all the necessary information regarding the satellites' positioning at all times, establishing the location is fairly easily achieved.

Naturally, as the monitored person's location is established and constantly updated, the GPS device is constantly registering that movement/tracking data against the schedules and zones that have been established within the monitoring system. If the tracking data identifies exceptions (potential non-compliance) have occurred within the established schedule and zone rules, it will alert and notify monitoring staff accordingly. Then staff can use the mapping and other system software tools to investigate if the monitored person's behavior actually represents non-compliance and/or a public safety risk.

NOTE: It is important to note that there are certain gravitational and ionospheric conditions that can impact the orbits of the satellites and/or the travel-time of signals down to earth. These variations are quickly resolved because the Department of Defense constantly monitors the exact position of the satellites in the constellation and immediately makes any needed adjustments. The ongoing adjustments are communicated to the GPS devices on earth as part of the continuous signal transmissions emanating from the satellites.

As always, please feel free to call us if you have any questions about GPS or any other form of electronic monitoring.

Considerations To Assist NC Sheriffs in Starting GPS Initiatives

As an elected NC Sheriff, you are undoubtedly aware there are a growing number of GPS products and sellers competing for your attention and business. Therefore, it is critical that you get accurate information on which to base your decisions. To that end, following are a just a few key recommendations for your consideration if you are seriously interested in exploring or pursuing a GPS montitoring intiative for your office:

1) It is more important than ever that you deal with a reputable supply/support company that will both help you analyze your local needs and discover the highest and best use of GPS to meet those needs. Having a monitoring partner that knows the nuances of your state/local judicial system, the various approaches your counterparts use with GPS, and a history of success with other NC Sheriffs is a good starting point.

2) Your monitoring partner should be freely available to provide all the training and ongoing support your staff needs to insure you operate a quality GPS program. It is a fair question for you to ask exactly what frequency and level of ongoing training support (including on-site as needed) that you can expect. If you do not get firm commitments in this regard - proceed with extreme caution.

3) Of course, in addition to the customer support relationship, it is critical that you use quality products from proven manufacturers if you are going to deploy GPS. Your monitoring partner should be able to provide you with their law enforcement customers (preferably ones you know in NC) that use its GPS equipment in the field. Also, you should be told of the limitations of the equipment and not just the strengths. A bad decision at this stage of your program's development can jeopardize everything you are trying to accomplish with your GPS initiative. Please remember that a good sales presentation on the front end does not necessarily translate later to local responsiveness and solutions in the field.

Naturally, we feel Reliant is positioned better than any other to help you succeed with any GPS monitoring initiative you might be considering. We are based in NC and understand the systems and agencies you interact with every day. We have full-time training and technical support staff on the ground in NC. And our warehouse and equipment support is also based in NC. That is the reason ElmoTech, the monitoring industry leader, has partnered with us to offer their GPS products to local law enforcement in North Carolina.

Please give us a call anytime. We are always available to give honest answers to your questions and would be happy to discuss a demonstration of our leading-edge GPS products.

Basic Questions to Consider Before Starting or Upgrading to a GPS Program

We regularly get calls about starting up an offender-supervision GPS program or substituting GPS for currently deployed Radio-Frequency (RF) technology. It is a good idea to really think through the goals and desired outcomes of such a move due to the different supervision needs and increased information management skills required to properly operate an offender-supervision GPS program. At a minimum (not necessarily in this order) we suggest consideration of the following:

First, what is the nature of the public/safety policy objective? Misdemeanant pretrial-release defendants or civil non-payors of child support may not require the same level of staff attention and quick field-response for non-compliant behavior as compelled monitoring of a convicted sex offender or domestic violence perpetrator. Are you being asked to monitor movements within the community as part of a supervision regimen or are you simply being asked to enforce a curfew or keep the person locked down at a residence 24/7? Which targeted population and legal purpose you are focused on should help inform your technological approach.

Second, what are the technology limitations as tied to the proposed application? Once you have identified your supervision target population and purpose, can you truly determine that GPS technology will better help you achieve your objective over RF technology? If the answer is yes (i.e. community tracking is needed, zone enforcement is needed, etc.), then can you accept and manage the occasional limitations that accompany most any GPS initiative (GPS signal strength/drift issues, dependence upon cellular communication for sanity cycles, operational reliance upon the device's battery?, etc.) And perhaps, most importantly, can you manage the expectations of the courts and citizenry - being careful to not overstate technological capabilities and create a false sense of community-safety tied to the equipment?

Third, what are the personnel/training implications? Once you understand, accept, and manage the technology limitations tied to any offender-supervision GPS program, you must honestly assess the ability of your supervision staff to properly operate and manage the GPS technology. Adjusting from RF to GPS typically requires a shift in approach to the job in terms of daily tasks. Often, field staff report that managing the GPS equipment itself is simpler and more straight-forward. However, managing the volume/complexity of information flow generated from a GPS system is unquestionably more challenging than RF. Staff time devoted to interpreting daily event reports, interfacing with mapping screens, reviewing/prioritizing alert notification, analyzing compliance behavior, etc. is substantially increased. These increased information management needs and required skill-sets must be factored when identifying the best staff for the job and when formulating a training plan to insure their success.

Fourth, what are the budget implications? After determining the purpose for/type of GPS program you will operate, finding the technological limitations are acceptable and manageable, identifying the staff and training required for success, it is time to explore whether the benefit of GPS over RF is worth the increased costs of the technology upgrade or investment. The supervision capability upgrade of GPS is fairly self-evident - but it is important to still ask is it truly worth the costs? In answering this question, it is important that you factor not only the increased cost of the GPS equipment and monitoring - but all other potential costs increases and add-ons associated with the move to GPS.

Fifth, what are the liability implications? After all the above-stated questions are explored, we recommend a final re-assessment of your planned GPS program, its purpose and target population, its limitations and advantages, as well as its costs. Then finally - filter your findings through a common-sense risk-management assessment. It is an important exercise in order to determine if you taking on more liability than you are comfortable with because any of these areas mentioned above may pose a serious challenge or concern if you cannot successfully address them. In our opinion, it is best to not move forward with a move to GPS unless and until the issues we have raised here are dealt with in an open and satisfactory manner.