Probation and Parole
Scenario
As you may know, over 4.6 million adult men and women were on probation or Parolee at the end of 2001. But did you know that in 2002 45% of Paroleees discharged from supervision were returned to incarceration? Additionally, officer caseloads have doubled over the last three decades since department budgets have remained the same or decreased. The average caseload for today's Parolee officer is 70-80 Parole, which translates to 15 minutes spent with an offender once per month.

Caseloads for officers in urban areas can approach 200 offenders, while Los Angeles County reports that officers supervising released felons are assigned 300 people; caseloads of officers supervising less serious offenders sometimes reach 1000. Multiple studies have shown that the overwhelming amount of work assigned to probation and Parole officers translates to minimal, almost non-existent levels of supervision.

Consider also that 9% of Parole have "abscond" status, meaning that they cannot be found and have lost contact with their Parole officers. It's apparent that budget constraints and corresponding caseload levels have left the current probation and Parole methodology insufficient.

Solution
GPS tracking systems cannot prevent a crime from happening nor guarantee the elimination of re-offense, but they can act as a cost effective, efficient, and powerful tool for probation and Parole departments. By enrolling offenders in GPS tracking programs, officers can monitor a greater number of offenders while spending less time and effort.

STEALTH TRAC exception-based reporting allows for officers to be notified only in the case of an offender's non compliance; if offenders remain in compliance, the officer isn't notified which allows the officer to focus attention on those people who truly need greater supervision. As our customers can attest, patterns quickly arise highlighting which offenders are routinely non compliant and which offenders remain in compliance. The old adage that "80% of your time is spent on 20% of your issues" remains true. By providing an accurate reflection of offenders' adherence or non compliance to time/location parameters, we help agencies correctly identify that 20%. This enables agencies to make the best use of their current available labor.

Another advantage is that officers no longer have to spend as much time "finding" instances of non compliance; such instances "come" to the officers since the tracNET24 web-based application can generate and send violation notifications to officers as they happen. Issues can be resolved in a timely manner rather than being addressed weeks later (if discovered at all). Our system also gives officers access to detailed mapping information and violation reports for each offender. Officers no longer have to come into contact with an offender to verify location. If a participant still chooses to abscond, the corresponding authority will be able to view the last point prior to infraction. Information of this nature usually isn't available with traditional Parole or probation supervision.

GPS tracking systems can also be applied using similar methods to provide positive results for Pretrial Service Agencies .