University of North Texas at Dallas

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UNT Dallas criminal justice students see latest tools for monitoring ‘clients’

Dallas — Every Thursday at 3 p.m., local residents on probation enter a Dallas County courtroom and have a device that looks like a policeman’s flashlight waved in front of their faces. It’s not magic, torture or hypnotizing, but it is one of the newest tools for monitoring alcohol use.

Dave Wakefield, supervisor of Dallas County’s Community Supervision and Corrections Department, and Kareem Hart with the Dallas County’s Electronic Monitoring Unit recently showed University of North Texas UNT Dallas criminal justice students the latest in high-tech gadgetry they use in dealing with “clients” on probation.

UNT UNT Dallas instructor Jesse Senderson worked in the same office from 1985 to 1993 before joining the criminal justice faculty at UNT Denton. He was the first supervisor in the county’s electronic monitoring program. Senderson invited Hart and Wakefield to come speak to his students Feb. 11.

Hart, who is also a probation officer, monitors 55 probationers right now — 10 more than the state allows — because his staff is one person short. The electronic monitoring program is grant-funded, so they have to follow certain policies and procedures.

About 50,000 people are on probation in Dallas County with another 15-20,000 on probation who report to other counties, Wakefield said. There are 1,200 people on probation that report to the county’s 12 specialty drug courts. Dallas is the first county in Texas to have a DWI court. To help them monitor their clients, they have to continue coming up with new ways to test for drug and alcohol use.

Senderson said probation used to be considered a slap on the wrist, not really a punishment. While that’s not the case anymore, probation is considered a rehabilitative alternative to prison.

“Electronic monitoring is a tool used to monitor compliance of home arrest,” Hart said. “We get a lot of high-profile cases, so with the monitoring you have to be really, really meticulous, checking the curfews, making sure these guys are where they’re supposed to be when they say they’re there and they’re doing what they say they’re doing.”

Hart showed students a radio-frequency-transmitter, ankle-monitor bracelet he was wearing. It’s the same kind courts have used for years for people under house arrest. Clients must carry a special phone 24 hours a day that transmits their location to a field monitoring device. This device automatically downloads their activity to a monitoring computer. Probation officers check the activity reports every morning.

Clients who fail to report or who cut their ankle bracelets off can be given 24/7 home lockdown status. “It’s just like being in jail except you’re confined to your home,” Hart observed.

These radio-frequency transmitters only track people when they are close to the monitor. It shows when they enter or exit their house, but it doesn’t show where they went when they leave. Clients must document when they leave their house and where they go and contact their probation officer to explain why they left. The technology leaves much to be desired.

Hart then showed the new digital trans-receiver the county acquired a year ago that has GPS — or Global Positioning System, a satellite-based tracking system — so clients can be monitored without their phone wherever they are. The new equipment is a huge improvement, Hart said, because “We can track you wherever you go in the United States.”

“Normally the people that get the GPS monitors have victims,” Hart explained. “We zone the victim’s residence and her employment or wherever she may be so that the suspect cannot go into that area,” or typically within 500 to 1,000 feet of the victim’s zones.

If a client drives through one of those areas, Hart’s phone immediately alerts him that an “exclusion zone” violation is occurring. The probation officer then contacts the victim to let her know that the suspect is in her area. Then he calls the police. “We can’t take chances with these guys because we never know what they’re going to do,” Hart said.

Students were surprised to hear that clients who cut off their ankle bracelets are not immediately arrested.

“Everybody has the right to due process,” Wakefield explained. “So just because they’re on probation on electronic monitoring and they cut that monitor, that does not give anybody the right to go arrest that person and bring them to jail.”

Another surprise to students was the cost of monitoring. Clients are charged $3 a day to be in the monitoring program. If a client’s monitoring equipment is damaged — accidentally or not — the client must reimburse the county. The monitoring box is $1,600; the phone is $325.

Wakefield showed students a standard urinalysis (UA) test cup used to test for drugs.

“We have to observe people peeing in the bottle,” Wakefield said. “The majority of the people on probation are males, but the majority of the probation officers are female.”

All UAs are shipped to a lab in Phoenix and the results are back within 24 hours. “That’s technology at its best,” he interjected. If a test comes back positive, they usually get a confirmation. Dallas County spends $1 million a year for all urine tests for everyone on probation in the county.

The most common way people try to deceive a UA is by drinking up to a gallon of water or a sports drink. Their urine is diluted, so drugs are undetectable. Like radio-frequency transmitters, technology has progressed.

Wakefield showed students an instant UA which gives results in three minutes, but it is not admissible in court. He showed a drug patch that works for 10 days and does not require a UA.

More important than UAs and other monitoring devices, he said, “You need to talk to them. You need to find out what they’re all about, what’s going on, and say, ‘Listen, I can help you.’”

Not all clients are receptive to that offer, so they are forced to cooperate. Wakefield then displayed the latest tools for the monitoring of alcohol from a cotton swab that instantly shows the presence of alcohol in saliva to an EtG test that can detect alcohol use within 40 to 50 hours.

When asked whether cough syrup or mouth wash or poppy seeds could produce positive results, Wakefield said they could not because the levels are so minute.

“My philosophy is this. If we take a drug test on someone, we pay a lot of money. We’re paying a company a million dollars a year. If it’s positive for heroin or opiates, I want to know. I don’t want to know if it’s positive for poppy seeds. I don’t want to know that he was in a room with someone smoking marijuana. I need to know if that person is using drugs, period.”

Wakefield showed students an ignition Guardian Interlock device that prevents a car from starting if it detects alcohol on a person’s breath. When someone gets a second or third DWI, they get an ignition interlock device with a camera that came out a year ago. A pilot DWI program the county started in June 2008 currently has 20 people in it. Felony DWI probationers have to wear a GPS ankle bracelet at all times. The bracelet has a built-in alcohol sensor and monitors changes in body temperature.

Wakefield displayed a new product they are considering using for DWI court. Similar to the Guardian Interlock, it is an In Home Alcohol Monitoring Unit with a camera on it so they know who’s blowing into it at what time. “We’re getting 20 of these to start with, within 60 days, to try them out and see if they work. We’re very excited about this product in helping us monitor our clients,” he said.

“The way these specialty courts work is, if you do well, you get rewarded. So when you start out, you may have to blow in this thing a whole lot. But say two weeks go by and you don’t have any violations, it’s the same way with the urine test. The more clean UAs you have, the less you take.”

Wakefield brought out what looks like a standard policeman’s Mag Flashlight. But this one has an alcohol sensor and costs $800. “If you just wave this over the top of a beer can, it goes off. It’s very sensitive. Every Thursday at 3:00 in third DWI court, all the clients come in and we wave this in front of their faces.” Yes, some people come to court drunk, he said.

Wakefield invited UNTDC student Janell Foster to try to walk a straight yellow line wearing Fatal Vision® Goggles that simulate having a blood alcohol content of .17, or about double the legal limit of .08.  “Am I on it?” she asked. She was nowhere close.

 

For More Information:
David Porter
Associate Director of Marketing, News and Information
(972) 780-3663
David.Porter@unt.edu