The electronic monitoring program run by Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman's office is understaffed and hamstrung by limp enforcement that leaves juvenile offenders with little to fear, according to a report released Wednesday. The review,?by a group sponsored by?the National Institute of Justice, was solicited by Gusman following last month's high-profile failure to track down a teen suspected of committing crimes after his ankle monitor went offline for more than a day.
The 14-page report by the Corrections Technology Center of Excellence found numerous systemic problems with a program that oversees about 100 juveniles and adults assigned electronic monitors in Orleans Parish.
Notably, it says two additional deputies and a supervisor should be assigned to the team that tracks the bracelets, which would nearly double the current staffing of three deputies and a supervisor.
As it stands, there is no live staffing for nights and weekends, the report said.
On-call deputies are assigned to respond to alerts during those times, but the sheer number of alerts for curfew violations and failures to charge ankle bracelets make it "a frustrating experience" for the on-call deputies, the report said.
"The number of staff assigned to the EMP is insufficient to monitor a program that requires responses to alerts on a 24/7 basis," the report said.
Gusman said Wednesday that he?is working?to hire one additional deputy to join the monitoring team, and that he has assigned staff at the sheriff's 24-hour communications office to bridge the gap.
Read the report: empreport.pdf??
The report also says that juvenile offenders are quick to notice weak enforcement of the program, which monitors both criminal offenders and runaways. The report recommends ridding the program of the runaways,?a reform that?would take cooperation from juvenile court judges.
"The team felt these individuals have little reason to change their behavior and, in fact, may become more rebellious toward authority as a result of a requirement to wear a tracking device," the report said. "Most have a history of running away, and this propensity is not changed by applying an ankle bracelet."
Part of the problem, the report found, is that the sheriff's office lacks the autonomy to enforce the rules.
The report noted that the Youth Study Center's 36 beds are often filled up, leaving little consequence for kids who violate their conditions, such as curfew hours or "inclusion zones."
Judges also wield?too much control over conditions of the program and when ankle bracelet scofflaws should face punishment or termination from the program, the report said.
"I think one of the key recommendations is to stop the practice of using them for what we call families in need," Gusman said Wednesday, referring to runaways and other juveniles with family troubles but no criminal charges. "Clearly, there's nothing you can hang over their heads."
Gusman declined to say how often his office has gone out to detain juveniles who break their restrictions, but said it generally only happens "if they did a major violation - if they cut their strap, or allowed their battery to go all the way down."
He said the program had 103 people on ankle bracelets as of Wednesday, including 58 juveniles. About 10 of those were not facing criminal charges.
Currently, each judge sets their own conditions for people ordered to wear the monitors. They also set their own policies for when deputies should arrest someone if they violations.
The sheriff's office should consult with the judges, the report said, but the "ultimate responsibilities for acceptance and termination of participants should lie with the program, not the courts," the report said.
Juvenile Court Judge Ernestine Gray?could not be reached?Wednesday.
The review was conducted by George Drake, an expert on offender tracking technologies, and Sgt. David Scheppegrell of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina, which has a monitoring program that New Orleans and others have looked to as a model.
Scheppegrill called it unusual?to have?a monitoring program "where the courts totally dictate who you're going to monitor and there's basically no say-so by the monitoring agency ...?with no way of really enforcing non-compliance.
"Electronic monitoring should be a middle step between living at home with freedom, and detention. If you're not willing to put someone on detention for not following the rules, they probably shouldn't have been on a monitor to start with."
He said he expects to see improvement in Orleans Parish, but it may come slowly.
"Word of mouth is a powerful thing. These kids talk to each other," he said of the lack of enforcement.
One key element that's lacking, Scheppegrill said, is an automated system that would allow police to run crime reports through the GPS system to see if?someone on a monitor was?at the scene of a crime. Gusman said?they do it manually, but not for all crimes. He said his office was looking into?an inexpensive solution.??
In the case of the juvenile who wore the failed ankle bracelet and is suspected in an armed robbery and carjacking last month, it is unclear whether deputies would have arrested him for veering away from his inclusion zone, even if the bracelet was functioning.
Citing confidentiality laws, Gusman has declined to specify the juvenile judge's conditions for the boy.
According to the report, the boy had allowed his tracking device to lose its charge, and a problem with a nearby cell tower caused confusion over the status of his device.
That may have contributed to deputies failing to respond appropriately to the alerts, since it appeared on a program screen that his ankle monitor was fully charged.
According to an earlier?report from OmniLink, the company that runs the tracking system, the first ankle monitor assigned to the boy malfunctioned, and a new monitor had similar problems. They were attributed to a cell-phone dead zone that prevented?it from communicating back to the company.
The new monitor was not communicating with servers for at least 24 hours, during which time, police say, the teen committed an armed robbery and a carjacking in an Uptown neighborhood on Oct. 2.
The area of at least one of the crimes fell outside his allowed geographical area. There was no evidence the boy had tampered with the monitor, Gusman said.
Gusman, however, said the deputy failed to heed a time stamp that showed the status of the monitor - indicating it was fully charged - was outdated. The deputy was suspended for a day, Gusman said.?
Police say around 10 p.m. on Oct. 2, the teen robbed someone at gunpoint and then carjacked a woman at gunpoint along with at least one other teen, a 16-year-old. Both teens were arrested after jumping out of the carjacking victim's stolen car when police were tailing them on Oct. 3, police have said.
In spite of this mishap, Gusman has insisted that monitoring program has been a "very effective alternative to incarceration" since its implementation in October 2010.
The experts are due back in six months for a follow-up review, Gusman said.
Source: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/11/orleans_parish_sheriffs_gps_mo.html
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