Angry in the Great White North

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has announced that the federal government is planning to track prisoners electronically when they are released on parole, but not everyone likes the idea:

It was good enough for Lindsay Lohan, but a Canadian trial program that will fit 30 federal parolees with ankle bracelet tracking devices is just "correctional quackery," one critic says.

The comments were made after Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced yesterday the trial "electronic monitoring" program. Beginning next month, 30 federal prisoners in Ontario will be "strongly encouraged" when paroled to participate in the ankle bracelet trial period. If they do not agree, the parole board could view it as a sign of the prisoner being unco-operative, Mr. Day added.

When it comes to dealing with prisoners about to be released back into society, you can always depend on the John Howard Society to to argue for the prisoners.  That's fine by me, since parolees are people too, and someone ought to be arguing for their interests.  Still, the argument being presented doesn't make much sense logically:

But the irremovable gizmos aren't proven; their signals fade, and their Global Positioning Satellite tracking isn't always real-time, said Craig Jones, executive director of the John Howard Society, a prisoners' advocacy group. He cited a 2007 study that called the ankle bracelets "correctional quackery."

"There's a tendency to go for the technological fix, the technological fetishism. But the technology is really untested, untried," said Mr. Jones, an advocate of "evidence-backed" parole programs such as counselling and training. "There isn't a kind of quick fix available here."

Didn't Stockwell Day say that this was a test program?  Doesn't that mean that the technology is being "tried"?  Craig Jones' attitude seems to be that technology that is untested and untried ought never to be tried or tested because it is untested or untried.

It makes me wonder if it is possible to have a rational debate with Craig Jones on this issue.  But then maybe Jones didn't realize the logical dead end he was walking into. 

But what is more surprising is that I would have though Craig Jones would have loved the idea.  I mean, it benefits the parolees in a big way.

To understand why, consider the words of the people who actually have to manage these parolees on behalf of the rest of us:

Peel Police Chief Mike Metcalf supports the program. His region currently has about 700 registered offenders and parolees, currently watched by just six officers.

"This can only help," Chief Metcalf said.

So how does this help the parolees?

Think about it.  Assume a parole officer can meet with 5 parolees a day.  That's 25 in a week, or 100 in a month.  With six officers managing 700 parolees, that's less than one visit a month.

Play with the numbers, but at best, we're talking many days between checkups, and probably weeks. 

So how does the GPS ankle bracelet help?  Imagine that you are a parolee.  You want to make a change.  You don't want to go back to prison.  You are trying to obey the conditions of your parole, but it's not easy.  Drinking was a part of your problem, and now you are required to abstain from alcohol, and that includes not being seen near a beer or liquour store, or going into bars.  After three hellish weeks (starting a new job, becoming accustomed to life outside the strict regimentation of prison, and so on, and not a drop of alcohol to take off the edge), you meet your parole officer, and he starts off by calling you a liar.  He says you've been seen coming out of a local bar, and that you could go back to prison if he gets another report like that one.  You want to deny it because you know he's just trying to trick you or to scare you.  But getting into a fight with the parole officer seems like a bad idea, so you promise to live by the rules.  You leave the meeting scared and miserable. 

All that effort and not an ounce of positive feedback.  The stress is getting worse, instead of receding, the longer you've been out of prison.

Do you have much hope of making it through the parole period without reverting to your previous bad behaviour?  I mean, you could really use a drink right now.

But then what is a parole officer to do?  He has no way to know what the parolee has been doing.  He can get a report from the parolee's employer who can tell him he's been at work every day, but that leaves huge gaps.  Maybe he hopes that fear will keep the parolee in line, because he knows the police don't have the manpower to do it any other way.  Cheap tricks might help.  And who's to say you didn't go into a bar?

Really, there's no way to prove it one way or the other.

Until now.

That's where the GPS ankle bracelet comes in.  With it, the parolee can proudly provide proof that he's been playing by the rules.  The parole officer can forgo the cheap tricks, and instead provide some honest words of encouragement.  Less stress for both the parolee and the officer.  For the officer, his focus can now turn to those parolees that seem to be having trouble, or perhaps are looking for trouble. 

If I was a parolee looking to succeed out of prison, I'd welcome the chance to prove to the people who are going to pass judgment on my behaviour that I'm on the straight and narrow.  GPS tracking data would go a long way to proving that my actions match my good intentions.  I put up the with tracking for a relatively short time, time that I could be spending in prison completing my sentence, and then off come the ankle bracelet and I'm a free man.

If I was an advocate for parolees, I'd be happy to have the opportunity to prove that most parolees are successful once out of prison.

Unless, of course, they're not.

But then the GPS ankle bracelet would help us know that too.