Pretrial GPS monitoring has shifted from a niche alternative to mainstream judicial practice. In 2026, more than 14 US states have introduced or enacted legislation expanding pretrial electronic monitoring, the UK has made GPS tagging a presumptive condition for prison leavers, and Harris County, Texas invested $1.4 million specifically to strengthen its GPS ankle monitor […]
When DuPage County, Illinois signed a $678,000 electronic monitoring contract with Sentinel Offender Services in January 2026, the OmniLink OM500 was the hardware at the center of the deal. The same device sits on thousands of ankles across Georgia, Michigan, Florida, and Hawaii through NASPO ValuePoint cooperative procurement agreements. If you’re evaluating GPS ankle monitors […]
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement program tracking immigrants via GPS ankle monitors has tripled in 12 months — from 17,000 devices in early 2025 to nearly 54,000 in August 2026. This massive expansion, driven by an internal ICE memo directing staff to place ankle monitors on all Alternatives to Detention participants “whenever possible,” exposes […]
Three correctional officers guarding 88 inmates. That ratio—roughly 1:29—was all it took for prisoners at North Carolina’s Bertie-Martin Regional Jail to overpower staff, seize hostages, and trigger a 10-hour standoff on June 29, 2026. Two weeks later, Sheriff Ralph Kersey of Scotland County issued a formal public safety warning: his 109-bed detention center is housing […]
After six years managing the CO-EYE product line and personally overseeing deployments in 30+ countries, I’ve reviewed hundreds of agency RFP evaluation reports. The pattern is unmistakable: ankle monitor failures in the field are overwhelmingly architectural, not manufacturing defects. Agencies replace devices thinking they got a “bad batch,” only to encounter identical problems with the […]
On a weekday morning in May 2025, representatives from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Palantir, and Serco filed into a TechUK conference room in London to hear a question from Britain’s Prisons Minister, Lord James Timpson: “What could a digital, data and technology-enabled justice system look like by 2050?” Among the responses — revealed only now […]
A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas issues a standing order requiring attorneys to certify that no AI-generated content in their filings was used without human verification. Across the Atlantic, the Law Society of New South Wales convenes its most intensely debated panel in years on AI adoption. Meanwhile, legal scholars at Lawfare […]
A probation officer reviews a caseload of 80 offenders. Each one generates a GPS fix every five minutes—that is 1,152 data points per person per day, or 92,160 across the caseload. Scroll through any monitoring dashboard and the problem is obvious: thousands of dots moving across a map, but no narrative, no pattern, no intelligence. […]
By JR Rodrigues, Technical Advisor — REFINE Technology The electronic monitoring industry is seeing a quiet but significant shift toward wrist-worn tracking devices. Sold as “more discreet,” “less stigmatizing,” and “consumer-friendly,” these wristband-style GPS and BLE monitoring devices are marketed to agencies looking for lighter-touch supervision options. There is genuine appeal in a device that […]
By JR Rodrigues, Technical Advisor — REFINE Technology Every GPS ankle bracelet generates alerts. Some of those alerts represent genuine threats — a cut strap, a defendant fleeing the jurisdiction, a curfew violation. But a troubling percentage of alerts generated by electronic monitoring systems are false alarms — triggered by sweat, skin dryness, physical activity, […]
