#ankle monitors

[tearsofrefugees]

Immigrants fitted with ankle monitors after receiving texts to respond to Broadview processing center, rights advocates confirm

Immigrant rights advocates confirm that messages have been going out this weekend, asking people to report to the west suburban Broadview Im

[littlepawz]

True dat

[tearsofrefugees]

[tearsofrefugees]

ICE Invites Proposals For Enhanced Migrant Tracking Systems Following Trump's Win

ICE's recent notice requested companies to provide detailed plans on how they would manage the storage of location data and personal informa

[tearsofrefugees]

The government's new immigration measures are 'deeply troubling' and 'rushed', lawyers say

Experts argue that the Albanese government's new measures for people released from indefinite detention, including ankle monitors and harsh

[tearsofrefugees]

Number of Immigrants on ICE's GPS Ankle Monitors Increased Rapidly Since August

After months of decline, ICE's use of ankle monitors grew from less than 15,000 to nearly 60,000 in the past four months.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“In the past 18 months, as the judicial system has increasingly used electronic monitoring instead of prisons to monitor inmates through the coronavirus pandemic, newly released data confirm what activists and advocates have long argued: Ankle monitors are onerous, and they often subject wearers to vague rules, like avoiding people of “disreputable character.”

The ankle monitoring business, the research found, is also dominated by four profit-seeking companies, and it ultimately could drive more people back to prison.

The new, comprehensive collection of hundreds of electronic monitoring-related rules, policies and contracts, obtained through public records requests across 44 states, demonstrates that four companies that make millions of dollars a year account for 64 percent of the contracts examined in the study. The companies — Attenti, BI Inc., Satellite Tracking of People LLC and Sentinel Offender Services LLC, according to the report — also keep location data indefinitely, even after monitoring is completed, which is within the law. Governments also often require family members or employers to act as agents of the government and report potential violations, putting them in an awkward position in which they must be both supportive and supervisory.

Crucially, wearers must pay both one-time and ongoing fees for the monitors, which can be $25 to over $8,000 a year. The report argues that such costs “undermine financial security when it is needed most.” By comparison, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons said in 2018 that it costs just under $100 per day to incarcerate a federal inmate, or over $36,000 a year. Put another way, wearers in Los Angeles and Sacramento counties in California, which impose the highest annual costs, according to the new findings, pay $22 a day — still considerably less than what taxpayers would otherwise pay.

“This is a form of incarceration that happens outside of prison walls,” said Kate Weisburd, an associate professor of law at George Washington University, who led a team of 10 law students that filed and analyzed the trove of documents. “It’s always intended to be a positive alternative to incarceration. But based on what we found, it’s doing the opposite. More rules and more surveillance generally leads to higher incarceration.”

Monica Hook, a spokeswoman for GEO Care, a division of the GEO Group, a private prison company, declined to respond to what she said was an “unfinished and less-than-balanced piece.” Representatives from the three other companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Put another way, people on monitors are subject to a vast number of government rules, which “makes compliance difficult,” according to the report. Some of the rules are quite vague. For example, the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Parole mandates that wearers “shall abandon evil associates and ways,” while the New Mexico Corrections Department says parolees must “maintain acceptable behavior.”

Matthew Estes, a spokesperson for the Alabama agency, declined to respond to a question about what the language means. He said in an email that the bureau is “making many exciting advances in rehabilitative treatment programs for probationers and parolees this coming fiscal year, including expanding our GPS program.”

The New Mexico Corrections Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Weisburd’s research found that because the results are open to interpretation and wearers can be hit with “technical violations” of the rules, “people are more likely to be reincarcerated for minor infractions that previously would have been invisible and ignored.”

In most cases, electronic monitoring is coupled with a form of house arrest — wearers must stay at or near their homes for a certain amount of time. They cannot leave without permission in advance. But according to the policies and contracts that Weisburd and her team obtained, most agencies do not clearly explain how far in advance such permission must be sought.

“Basically, every record we looked at had a negative impact, and by every measure it undermines people’s ability to survive outside of prison,” she said. “Just having to comply with the sheer number of rules, vague and broad rules, it means people are getting dinged more easily.”

- Cyrus Farivar, “Other than prison, electronic monitoring is 'the most restrictive form' of control, research finds,” NBC News. September 22, 2021.

[gettothedancing]

High School Forced Student Athletes To Wear Taxpayer-Funded Ankle Monitors To Track Covid Outbreaks

Eatonville High School, about 60 miles south of Seattle, required student-athletes to wear the ankle monitors for high-contact and medium-contact sports such as volleyball, football, basketball, wrestling, and soccer.

The “Trace Tag” monitors are manufactured by a company called Triax and have an alarm alerting the wearer when they get too close to another person. The device also collects contact tracing data in case a wearer later tests positive. The device can also be affixed to a hardhat or worn elsewhere on the body.

The monitors were used by both coaches and students on the field, “regardless of vaccination status,” the school said in a fact sheet.

“If an athlete were to test positive for COVID-19, the entire team could be quarantined,” the school said. “By using the proximity monitors we can immediately determine who might have been exposed to Covid-19.” . . .

Parents were supposed to sign off on the ankle monitors through a parental consent form, but at least one parent was reportedly not informed.

The mother of a 15-year-old girl told The Post Millennial that her daughter was forced to wear the ankle monitor during her volleyball team practice.

The mother contacted the athletic director, who she claimed acknowledged that the school had mistakenly failed to obtain her consent for the monitor and apologized for the “slip up.”

The school has now “shelved the devices until proper procedures including community input and board approval process occur,” school board director Matt Marshall told the outlet.