In many parts of the country, local jails are facing a crisis of overcrowding, understaffing, and high costs. This is often exacerbated by incarcerating people for long periods of time before their trial. Such incarceration not only burdens the justice system, it also impacts people’s freedom, employment, and family connections all while they are presumed innocent. One solution is electronic monitoring, which allows judges to release defendants with an ankle bracelet, so that they are not jailed but can be tracked during the pretrial period. The goal is to reduce the use of detention while also preventing misconduct. Yet very little research exists to show whether electronic monitoring programs are effective.
Arnold Ventures (AV) is partnering with Roman Rivera, an affiliated researcher at Georgetown University and IRS Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University, to evaluate the efficacy and effects of a pretrial electronic monitoring program in Cook County, Illinois, a large jurisdiction of 5 million people that includes Chicago. Rivera is using data from Cook County to study whether electronic monitoring has an impact on defendant case outcomes, crime, and costs. The project aims to increase understanding of electronic monitoring to help policymakers make better decisions about the design and implementation of this popular policy.
“As states like Illinois move away from traditional pretrial practices, such as the use of money bail, more attention is being focused on alternative options that balance the benefits of pretrial release with the preservation of community safety,” says Tyrell Connor, criminal justice research manager at AV. “Electronic monitoring is considered a promising solution by jurisdictions around the country. However, more evidence is needed to understand if these programs have their intended effects. This research will provide valuable information to policymakers who are eager for evidence to guide their pretrial practices.”
AV spoke to Rivera about the promise of electronic monitoring and why rigorous research is crucial to learn more about its efficacy.
This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Arnold Ventures
Could you tell us about the policy that you’re evaluating in Cook County?
Roman Rivera
The policy is a 2013 change in pretrial bond policy. The county had a jail overcrowding crisis and the chief judge allowed for expanded use of electronic monitoring in place of pretrial detention. Previously, the county generally used electronic monitoring — including ankle bracelets — for specific purposes or tied to monetary payment. However, it turned out that judges really liked this option, because it meant that they could reduce the number of defendants they were sending to jail while the sheriff would have oversight of those defendants. Judges became more likely to place defendants on electronic monitoring after this policy change until 2017 when there were significant changes to the bond system. I’m evaluating the effect of pretrial electronic monitoring on defendants during this period.
Arnold Ventures
What problem is electronic monitoring attempting to solve?
Roman Rivera
There are concerns over the number of people who are held in jails during the pretrial period. Those defendants are presumed innocent, yet they are detained, often for long periods of time. It’s costly for the defendant because they can’t have a job and they can’t see their families. It’s also incredibly expensive for the public, because keeping somebody in jail costs around $34,000 per year on average. Electronic monitoring is a very attractive middle option. Judges can let a defendant out of jail, but they are not completely releasing them such that they can go anywhere and do whatever they want. It saves money and it also keeps them monitored to deter them from misconduct. It has become increasingly popular over the last 15 or 20 years, particularly after COVID-19, and the technology has gotten better and more available. The question, though, is whether it actually works. Does it reduce costs? Does it prevent misconduct? If it does work, it could potentially be a great cost-saving solution as well as a much more humane system.
Arnold Ventures
How did you become interested in this issue?
Roman Rivera
I was into criminal justice-related activism in college. Then, while I was a master’s student at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, I got the opportunity to work on police misconduct with Bocar Ba, now a professor at Duke University. I saw how important criminal justice research could be, and I never looked back. Given the scope of the justice system and its impact on the lives of millions of people every day, I can’t think of many more important issues to study. Electronic monitoring was an element of the jail system that I hadn’t thought much about until I learned that Cook County had been using it for many years.
Arnold Ventures
What has your research found so far?
Roman Rivera
A large number of people who judges place on electronic monitoring would have been released otherwise. Despite its proposed usage to reduce jail overcrowding, judges actually use it both for people who would have been detained and for people who would have been released — it’s around fifty-fifty. That tells us something about how we might design electronic monitoring policy in the future, knowing that judges, if given the option, would sometimes like to use it for people who they would otherwise release, but maybe were on the margin for releasing. In terms of the effect of electronic monitoring on defendant outcomes, I can’t say definitively whether it is beneficial relative to release. However, relative to detention, I find that electronic monitoring leads to big social cost savings. This effect largely comes from the fact that jail is really expensive, and electronic monitoring is much less expensive — it’s around $15 a day for electronic monitoring compared to $150 a day for detention, over the course of a 100-day case. That adds up. Furthermore, people who are placed on electronic monitoring are slightly less likely to be found guilty later on, and while they do commit more pretrial misconduct, it’s relatively low-cost and mostly driven by failing to appear in court.
Arnold Ventures
What can you tell us about the potential benefits of electronic monitoring for community safety?
Roman Rivera
In terms of the social cost, when you add up crimes committed by people pretrial, you don’t find a significant difference for people who are detained relative to people on electronic monitoring. In terms of community safety more broadly, there is an open question about the effects of placing somebody back in their community versus placing them in jail. There needs to be more research about electronic monitoring and all the effects on people and their communities, in terms of health, social outcomes, psychology, employment, and whether paying for electronic monitoring makes it infeasible or produces negative spillovers.
Arnold Ventures
Why is it important to create evidence-based research about public policy?
Roman Rivera
Without creating a solid framework and identification strategy — all the stuff that goes into this research — we don’t actually know if the policies we’re using are effective, or what other policies might work better. The great thing is that we can figure these things out and provide an evidence base for policymakers to use, and then they can make decisions based on significantly higher-quality evidence than we have had before. We have learned so much in the last 10 to 15 years, about the jail system, prisons, the cost of incarceration, and so on. It’s just an explosion in the knowledge base. Continuing this growth in knowledge wouldn’t be possible without an organization like AV that’s committed to funding causal research, and it wouldn’t be possible without credible research designs.
