Lack of cell coverage hampers electronic monitoring of Vermont inmates

Ankle transmitters, used to monitor offenders who have been moved back into their communities, rely in part on cell phone service coverage. Photo courtesy of ProTech.

The Vermont Department of Corrections’ effort to move former inmates back into their communities through the use of electronic monitoring devices is stymied by the state’s gaps in cell phone coverage.

Cellular data signals are used to track offenders who wear electronic ankle bracelets as a requirement of home detention or home confinement. Certain areas of Vermont currently lack adequate cell phone coverage.

The Department of Corrections’ monitoring technology is contracted out to ProTech, a Florida-based company that produces the SMART ONE and SMART XT devices the state uses to track the locations of some offenders. The state awarded ProTech a maximum $540,000, two-year contract in March.

Download the ProTech contract. Pro-Tech contract with the Vermont Department of Corrections

Paul Drews, vice president of sales at ProTech, said the devices don’t need cellular coverage to function. Both products used by the Vermont Department of Corrections can store “a significant number of days” of wearer data and transmit it when possible in a variety of ways.

Andy Pallito, commissioner of the Department of Corrections, had hoped that the ankle bracelets would lead to more home-based imprisonments instead of institutional lockups.

“Part of the inhibitor [to using electronic monitoring technology] in Vermont is lack of cell phone coverage,” Pallito said. Between 10 and 15 people who are currently incarcerated could qualify for home confinement on July 1, as defined by S.108, passed earlier this year. The state saves roughly $25,000 for each person who is removed from the incarceration system.

The SMART XT device is the most expensive ProTech product in use by the state with a cost of $5 per day. This price is for active monitoring, $1 more expensive than passive monitoring, which is a less resource-intensive process.

Devices can relay their information to ProTech and, ultimately, the Vermont DOC via cellular signal, landline and radio transmissions to a base station in the offender’s home. Cellular transmission is the only method that allows the devices to continue to relay information when an offender is not near their home.

“Vermont, being as rural and as lowly populated as it is, the cell service can be a barrier to deploying electronic monitoring devices,” said Michael Touchette, corrections program supervisor.

Touchette said 165 people are currently monitored using the technology, but that with better cell phone coverage, “we could probably easily get up to 200.” Not all of those who are monitored would otherwise be incarcerated, but the monitoring is cheaper, “by far” he said, than devoting human resources to keeping track of offenders.

When a device stops transmitting information, agencies can be notified and deploy officers, according to Drews.

Pallito says the state’s contract is with ProTech, which then sub-contracts with cell phone carriers to provide the data coverage needed by the monitoring products.

Drews would not disclose the names of the companies his company had contracted with in Vermont. The contract between the state and ProTech, however, states that “ProTech’s primary service provider for Data Center communications is Verizon Wireless,” and that the company has “multiple backup providers” including AT&T.