Why It's Time to Embrace Electronic Monitoring Tools

Governments have been successfully piloting electronic monitoring programs for offenders for many years, yet these programs are not as well-integrated into the overall justice system strategy as they ought to be. While no one claims that these systems are perfect, they are excellent tools for promoting rehabilitation of criminal offenders while protecting society by deterring criminal behavior.

Grass roots public support for electronic monitoring has continuously grown over the past fifteen years, as virtually every jurisdiction has passed laws in the wake of murder victims killed by unmonitored released felons. Yet despite these laws, the effective implementation of electronic monitoring programs has lagged the expectations.

Electronic monitoring has a broad appeal across the political spectrum and criminal justice philosophies. America's Most Wanted host John Walsh has spoken in favor of these systems, while the ACLU has also spoken in favor of well-run monitoring programs. When used as a component of a holistic strategy, electronic monitoring can be part of the solution for both resocializing criminal offenders and protecting society from predators.

Below are some of the key benefits of electronic monitoring for policymakers:

Cost Savings

The daily cost of incarcerating an offender averages $70/day. Governments can no longer afford to build more and more prisons to house offenders. SecureAlert monitoring costs a fraction of that amount when paid for by government. When monitoring fees are paid by the offenders themselves, their cost to the taxpayer is virtually zero!

Resocialization Opportunity

Famously, it costs about as much to incarcerate an offender as it does to send him to college. Furthermore, prison life tends to solidify criminal tendencies rather than encourage resocialization into society. SecureAlert monitoring provides the opportunity to break the recidivism cycle, resocialize offenders into productive social roles, and does it in a way that protects society from relapses into criminal behavior.

Post-Incarceration Monitoring of High Risk Offenders

Far too often, dangerous violent criminals and sex offenders reach the end of their sentences and are released back into society with minimal supervision. We only need read the newspapers to find tragic examples of recently-released offenders assaulting and killing innocent victims. We believe that high risk offenders in the modern age should always be released under a GPS monitoring program in order to save lives and protect society from dangerous persons. While no monitoring program can provide 100% protection, SecureAlert’s tracking and intervention monitoring programs have intervened in real situations hundreds of times to save lives and stop criminal behavior in-progress.