For qualified adult pretrial defendants and pre-adjudicated juveniles, GPS monitoring technology is a viable alternative to incarceration or detainment. The technology allows them to continue their employment and/or education responsibilities in the community while waiting for their trial to begin. Because they’re in the community, they’re closer to their family and circle of friends for support. This approach helps reduce an agency’s cost and liability for housing, meals and medical treatment. For juveniles in detention centers, the agency must also provide additional expense services, such as educational and counseling.

 

Federal, state and county agencies across the nation use GPS technology to supervise this population of enrollees. The small size of BLUtag, our one-piece GPS monitoring device, means a pants leg easily covers the device, so it’s not readily visible to acquaintances and colleagues. And for juveniles, this is especially important so their peers don’t taunt them or attempt to remove the equipment.

For those sentenced adults and juveniles who qualify for community supervision, GPS technology offers an alternative to incarceration or detention while maintaining enrollee accountability and public safety. If these individuals remain in the community rather than serving time in a secure or non-secure facility (e.g., jail, prison, detention center), they can continue their responsibilities with employment and/or education. Because these individuals stay in their home community, they remain close to family and their circle of friends, which can help them stay crime-free.

 

BLUtag is an ideal tool to help supervising agents monitor the enrollee’s compliance with the terms of his/her supervision. It’s easy to use and requires enrollees to complete only one task each day: recharge the battery for one hour. More than 350 government agencies and independent service providers in the U.S. use BLUtag to track the locations and movements of adult and juvenile enrollees.

When releasing adults and juveniles from a secure or non-secure facility (e.g., prison, detention center, residential facility), they are required to remain on community supervision for a designated length of time. During this transition time, they sometimes need additional motivation to maintain a schedule and participate in positive activities. Adding GPS monitoring technology to the supervision tools allows supervising agents to help enrollees go to required locations, such as counseling sessions, and stay away from specific locations, such as areas known for drug and/or gang activity.

 

Some of the largest parole programs in the nation use BLUtag to monitor and track the locations and movements of enrollees with a variety of backgrounds, including sex offender, gang member and high profile. BLUtag helps enrollees remain compliant with the terms of their supervision because they know their supervising agent will quickly find out their locations and movements and can take decisive action.

Truancy is a continuing issue in education today. When students aren’t in school, their education lags behind their peers and schools cannot receive full funding for all of the students they serve. While GPS technology cannot address many of the factors contributing to and creating truant students, it does provide one more tool for supervising agents and school truancy officers to help students stay in school.

 

Supervising agents create inclusion zones around the school campus where students must enter at a certain time and remain until a specified period of time, usually to the end of the school day. Supervising agents can also create exclusion zones around shopping malls, the student’s home and other locations where students cannot go during specified periods of the day, such as when they should be in school.

 

BLUtag is an ideal GPS monitoring device for supervising juvenile enrollees in the community. It is small enough for a pants leg to easily cover it. The device is lightweight, weighing around 6 ounces. Enrollees have only one task to complete each day: recharge the battery for one hour. BLUtag even reminds the enrollee to recharge battery by vibrating when the power level begins to get low.