Electronic Monitoring

Ever get that feeling someone is watching you? That someone is always behind you, and you continually look bad while walking? Your every move being monitored? This is a reality for some offenders. An electronic monitoring system is agreed to as an alternative to a locked facility. This electronic device that is used to monitor the particular location at a specific time of a particular individual is called an electronic monitoring or tagging. Electronic monitoring is also used for home confinement or house arrest (Champion, 1992). This paper will discuss what an electronic monitoring is, its orientation, and the types of signaling devices used. Then the amount of offenders affected by electronic monitoring and the type of offenders on electronic

The programmed contact device uses a central computer that is programmed to call the offenders home at random times and they are the only ones that can answer the phone because they have to insert their wristlet transmitter and the computer will detect their voice. The cellular device determines location by radio signal (Champion, 1992). Lastly, the GPS which can connect to landlines or cell phone of the offender to send signal that can be traced 24 hours of the day.

Resembling everything else in the world, there are both advantages and disadvantages with the electronic monitoring systems. Some advantages of electronic monitoring are the financial savings, low recidivism rates, and capability to monitor the offender’s location at any time (Development Services Group, Inc., 2014). While the disadvantages of electronic monitoring are discrimination against poor families, false positives, and emotional effects (Sklaver, n.d.). Overall, the electronic monitoring system is reducing recidivism rate, which the most important aspect of the program, especially in relation to