The guys at CWBChicago have a breakdown of how ankle monitoring is supposed to function. I have to say IMO, even if it worked, it wouldn’t work. They asked questions regarding the monitoring of the man who set Bethany MaGee on fire on the CTA train. The answers, when not clearly evasive, were frightening.
What are the standard procedures to be followed when any defendant with similar pretrial release conditions fails to be in their assigned residence as required?
Alerts are automatically emailed to the assigned pretrial officer for verification to determine if they are valid curfew violations. If they are valid curfew violations, the assigned officer will prepare a non-compliance report with all alleged violations. The report will be reviewed by a supervisor before being sent to the Assistant State’s Attorney, the assigned defense counsel, and the clerk to be tendered to the judge no later than the next scheduled court date. The ASA will decide whether to file the non-compliance and petition to sanction or revoke pretrial release.How many court employees are assigned to monitor pretrial EM alerts? How many of those employees were on duty 11/14 at 9 p.m.; 11/17 at 12 p.m.; 11/17 at 9:25 p.m.?
The department uses a layered monitoring model that includes the contracted monitoring center, Home Confinement staff, and pretrial/probation staff. Two separate groups of staff monitor pretrial EM and associated alerts; Home Confinement Unit EM technicians and Pretrial Services post-release supervision staff. There are currently 17 EM technicians and about 120 FTEs in pretrial post-release. The technicians are split across four shifts covering 24 hours. Technicians are responsible for triaging device-related alerts like tampers and communication loss; they do not triage or respond to inclusion zone/curfew alarms, which are emailed directly to the pretrial officer.
On 11/14 at 9 p.m. there were 4 technicians on shift; on 11/17 at 12 p.m. there were 4 technicians on shift; on 11/17 at 9:25 p.m. there were 3 technicians on shift.
The post-release staff supervise all defendants ordered to pretrial supervision, including those on curfew or 24/7 home detention. Each person on EM has an assigned pretrial officer who is responsible for verifying and addressing inclusion zone/curfew alarms through the non-compliance process. These staff work during normal county business hours (M-F, 8 to 4, 8:30 to 4:30, or 9 to 5).How many defendants are on EM in any form?
As of 11/21/2025, there were 3,191 individuals on EM with the Adult Probation Department.
There’s more at the link, but let me sum it up:
If there’s a violation, someone has to write a report that goes to a supervisor for a review that may or may not be sent to the Assistant States Attorney and others, but doesn’t have to be sent until the next scheduled court date for the violator. So it could be months.
You’ll note that they didn’t address the 120 FTE post-release staffing and concentrated on the techs, who have limited scope. The 120 FTE only work regular city hours. So there is NO ONE on duty when things are most likely to happen to take any action if someone is in violation of their release requirements. And even if they were, the most they could do is write reports. There is nothing in place to get these people into jail.
As long as city governments go the administrative route instead of keeping people in jail (and as long as judges do not receive any repercussions for releasing dangerous people into the population), then what happened will both continue to happen and will escalate.
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