About 1 in 5 felony suspects in La Salle County cut off their ankle bracelets, authorities seek alternatives

Eight ankle bracelets have been cut off. Police have done compliance checks and found no trace of the defendants. Suspects have flat-out lied to judges about where “home” is.

La Salle County State’s Attorney Joe Navarro is fed up.

He wasn’t happy with the SAFE-T Act to begin with and he has always believed ankle bracelets wouldn’t work for felony suspects. He asked for data from the Office of Pre-Trial Services and one stat jumped off the page: One in five felony suspects on GPS monitoring has simply cut off the bracelet.

“I do not believe that the GPS/bracelet concept is working.”

—  Ottawa Police Chief Brent Roalson

Local police chiefs agree that GPS monitoring is, increasingly, an unreliable way to track felony suspects.

“I do not believe that, since the implementation of the SAFE-T Act the GPS/bracelet concept is working,” Ottawa Police Chief Brent Roalson said. “The SAFE-T Act has brought about a sense empowerment to those who are committing crimes especially those committing felonies.”

Roalson said no cash bail and pre-trial release would only work with “those who have made a mistake and respect the legal process.” For most felony suspects, he said, there was no realistic chance of getting any such compliance.

“Those who commit felonies,” he said, “usually have a rap sheet that shows the progressive level of disrespect for laws and our legal process.”

Peru Police Chief Sarah Raymond agreed the key issue isn’t the viability of the GPS technology but the defendant’s compliance – or lack thereof.

“I believe, as with most things, there are compliant offenders and non-compliant offenders,” Raymond said. “Those who want to reoffend are not going to be stopped by an ankle monitor.”

In La Salle County, about 45 felony suspects were placed on GPS monitoring – not counting traffic offenders under home monitoring in lieu of jail – and eight of those illegally removed their bracelets and absconded. That’s a failure rate of 18%.

Some of the suspects who flunked GPS monitoring were inherently high-risk:

• In April, Teren Overbeck of California was nabbed with a Class X volume of ketamine and openly told agents he was a drug dealer. Four days after being granted pre-trial release, police found his ankle bracelet had been cut off. He’s still a fugitive.
• Last month, Phillip Weeks of La Salle was picked up on a warrant charging him with sexually assaulting a child. Two days after his release, Mendota police recovered his disabled monitor and found Weeks a short walk from the Amtrak station.
• In early November, a judge yanked pre-trial release for Derek Hornick of Streator after GPS monitoring placed him twice at a restricted address. Hornick, who is facing drug charges, tampered with the device and then jumped out of a moving squad car to flee police.

Navarro said he’s not categorically opposed to GPS monitoring. The technology, he said, has a place for low-risk offenders such as those who’ve plead to traffic offenses.

“It’s a benefit to the people who have a job and appreciate being able to work, come home and not going to jail,” Navarro said. “But it’s not meant for violent crimes. It’s not for sex crimes. It’s not for gun crimes.”

Taxpayer costs

While GPS monitoring has proven to be flawed, Navarro said, it’s also proven to be costly for taxpayers. Each ankle monitor costs $975 and Navarro was surprised to learn not a single suspect was ordered to contribute to the costs of home confinement.

“You, I and Joe Q. Public are paying the freight for their freedom,” Navarro said.

Navarro said he’d like to see judges assess a suspect’s ability to pay before approving the use of GPS monitoring devices.

Oglesby Police Chief Mike Margis said lawmakers in Springfield may have envisioned saving taxpayer dollars by jailing fewer suspects, but it isn’t playing out that way.

“The GPS system was designed to be a cost-effective alternative to pretrial incarceration allowing the defendant to maintain employment and ensuring pubic safety,” he said. “With the challenges that are becoming more public, I no longer believe it is doing either.”

Risk reduction

Navarro and the police chiefs do not foresee the legislature making serious modifications to the SAFE-T Act in the upcoming session. Nevertheless, they do seek policy changes that could make ankle bracelets more effective.

Navarro said it needs to start in the courtroom. The Office of Pre-Trial Services is tasked with conducting risk assessments to help judges identify which defendants are best suited for GPS monitoring; but it can be a mad scramble compiling that information and there have been mistakes and oversights.

Suspects have listed home addresses later found to be condemned structures. Police have visited homes and found them locked and in foreclosure. Some suspects list home as a public housing unit from which they were long ago barred.

“I’m not pointing the finger at anyone,” Navarro said. “There’s always urgency to get these people out, which means the vetting process is being done too quickly and not being done properly.

“If Pre-Trial Services needs more people to do that, then they should get more people to do that.”

Raymond said she’d like to see better and faster notification to police when an ankle bracelet is cut or disabled.

“Our experience here has been a lag in the reporting of those who are non-compliant by the company that monitors them,” Raymond said. “When we get called that someone is non-compliant it has been up to an hour of time passed since the offense. They need to be better at that if the SAFE-T Act is going to continue to restrict the courts from detaining offenders.”

Margis said GPS monitoring could be made more effective with technology upgrades or stricter implementation. He’d like to see devices use artificial intelligence “to flag unusual patterns” and to give authorities the discretion to take immediate action.

Roalson said he hopes the legislature will limit the use of GPS monitoring to misdemeanor suspects or to first-time felony suspects with no history of violence.