In the early stages of the pandemic, as courts closed their doors, Iman Freeman, founder of the Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT), received a shocking call from a local attorney. The attorney revealed that due to COVID, his client had the option to wait for trial at home — if he could afford the costly ankle monitor provided by a for-profit company. While troubled by the notion of placing financial burdens on those who couldn’t afford it, Freeman agreed to cover the fees, kickstarting an unforeseen wave of demand.
What began as a singular case quickly spiraled into a citywide crisis. The number of individuals in Baltimore struggling to finance their ankle monitors surged, prompting BALT to establish an emergency fund that distributed approximately $300,000 in cash over less than two years. Freeman aptly describes this situation as the “criminalization of poverty.”
However, Baltimore’s struggle was not an isolated incident. A comprehensive report by the Vera Institute of Justice, released on Tuesday, sheds light on the extensive growth of electronic monitoring. Since 2015, the number of people under electronic surveillance has more than tripled, skyrocketing tenfold since 2005 to reach nearly half a million individuals in 2022. This surge is attributed not only to an increase in electronic monitoring within the criminal justice system but also to a staggering spike in its utilization by immigration officials.
Between 2021 and 2022 alone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) witnessed a more than threefold increase in the number of individuals placed on electronic monitoring. Since 2005, this figure has ballooned by an astonishing 270 times, raising critical questions about the intersection of public health, profit motives, and the social implications of electronic monitoring on an unprecedented scale.
As the use of electronic monitoring skyrockets in America, Jacob Kang-Brown, a senior research fellow at Vera, highlights the concerning expansion of control over individuals who would otherwise be unsupervised. The Vera Institute of Justice’s comprehensive report reveals a complex reality, challenging the narrative that electronic monitoring primarily serves as a tool for criminal justice reform.
While the overall incarceration rates have seen a decline, the rise in electronic monitoring is not consistently linked to this trend. The report discloses that in 2021, a majority of counties with high electronic monitoring rates also had jail populations above the median. For instance, in Detroit, between 2020 and 2021, the number of people on electronic monitoring surged by 41%, while the number of individuals in jail increased by 60%.
The lack of national reporting requirements for electronic monitoring, combined with the fragmented nature of the courts, government agencies, and private companies operating these programs, poses a challenge for comprehensive analysis. Vera’s researchers spent five years compiling data from all 50 states and around 800 counties, shedding light on the substantial growth of this heavily privatized industry.
ICE plays a significant role in this expansion, with approximately 360,000 individuals placed on electronic monitoring in 2022. Private prison giant GEO Group holds an exclusive $2.2 billion contract with ICE, contributing to the unprecedented surge in immigrant surveillance, even for families seeking asylum. Concerns are raised about the psychological strain on those under surveillance and the potential misuse of this technology in the future.
The report also exposes the growing cottage industry of electronic monitoring providers in the criminal justice system. Once dominated by major corrections industry giants, the field now includes a patchwork of small, local businesses, often operating in an unregulated environment. Charging individuals for monitoring, these companies threaten jail time for missed payments or technical issues with the monitoring system. The nonrefundable nature of these charges, even if the underlying charges are dropped, adds financial strain to those already facing dire circumstances.
Calls for better oversight, including a national reporting standard, are echoed by Kang-Brown and Zhang. They argue that introducing profit incentives to electronic monitoring programs, rife with transparency and oversight issues, can exacerbate existing problems and potentially harm individuals in ways comparable to incarceration itself.