Connecticut lawmakers will vote in the coming days on whether to dramatically expand the use of GPS monitoring to track the whereabouts of people accused of domestic violence as a way to keep victims safe from further abuse.
The hope is that if both victims and law enforcement can be alerted in real time when abusers get too close to victims, something can be done to prevent violence. Recent murders in Bethel and Milford highlighted how abusers don’t always follow court orders to stay away from victims.
But doubts, questions and concerns about the idea have emerged.
Chief among them: The state has done no research into whether GPS monitoring is an effective tool to prevent abuse, and the bills now before the Legislature do not call for any such study.
An investigation by CT Insider found even though the state has used the technology for more than a decade on a relatively small group of abusers, officials have never reviewed if it works.
Advocates have doubts about whether the devices would deter abusers and if police and victims would be able to react fast enough to stop abuse before it occurs.
In other states, GPS monitoring has been researched, with mixed results, but the programs reviewed were significantly different from Connecticut’s proposal.
Deploying and maintaining the technology is also expensive. One of the expansion proposals would come with a $5-million-a-year price tag, leaving some advocates wondering if the money could be better spent elsewhere on more proven programs to help survivors.
“There’s so many different areas that we could be funding,” said Meghan Scanlon, president of the state coalition who works with survivors.
The proposals to expand GPS monitoring have spurred other concerns.
Officials at the ACLU of Connecticut worry it will lead to more police interactions, technical violations and arrests for people of color.
“Electronic monitoring does not lower incarceration rates, it is not rehabilitative, and it is not cost-effective,” Jess Zaccagnino, policy counsel for ACLU of Connecticut testified before the Judiciary Committee.
The devices can also publicly stigmatize those awaiting trial who are ordered to be fitted with them.
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A GPS monitoring device used by the Connecticut Judicial Branch
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GPS equipment is shown to legislators on the Appropriations Committee earlier this year
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A GPS monitoring device used by the Connecticut Judicial Branch
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A GPS monitoring device used by the Connecticut Judicial Branch
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A GPS monitoring device used by the Connecticut Judicial Branch
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A GPS monitoring device used by the Connecticut Judicial Branch
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Radio frequency monitoring (house arrest) equipment shown to legislators on the Appropriations Committee earlier this year.
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“We have folks that go for job interviews, or spend time with their family, and it brings shame – it brings shame,” said state Rep. Chris Rosario, D-Bridgeport on how much the devices stand out.
“Usually, as technology advances these devices go from big to small, that doesn’t seem to be the case with this,” Rosario added. “The ankle monitors: they have gotten bigger and bulkier.”
State Rep. Chris Rosario, D-Bridgeport, a member of the General Assembly’s Government Administration & Elections Committee, in a 2017 file photo.
Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media
One of the bills making its way through the legislature would provide every court in the state access to real-time 24/7 GPS monitoring for domestic violence defendants who violate a protective order and are deemed dangerous. The legislation won unanimous support in the Senate May 16.
The other proposal, embedded within the budget bills proposed by Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont and the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, calls for spending an additional $350,000 a year to equip up to 350 more defendants with GPS but without real-time monitoring capabilities.
The state House of Representatives has until June 7 to vote on both measures.
After the expansion bill passed the Senate, a slew of press releases from legislators included statements such as, “It’s a bill that will protect victims in our state,” and “We must do all we can to protect victims.”
But Mike Lawlor, a former longtime state representative who served as a top criminal justice policy official in state government, questioned those claims.
“It sounds so appealing, right? It sounds so good. It sounds so obvious, and it’s hard to resist talking about it, because it seems like you’ve solved the problem,” Lawlor said. But, “GPS is not going to stop them from killing somebody if they really want to.”
And, “The question is: what are you getting in exchange for that [spending] other than a press conference and releases which frequently motivates a lot of my former colleagues,” said Lawlor, now a criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven.
Mike Lawlor, a former longtime state representative who served as a top criminal justice policy official in state government
Brian A. Pounds / Brian A. Pounds
GPS eyed as a solution
Some lawmakers say now is the time to experiment with programs like GPS, given that the state has billions in surplus funding.
“This is a moment to reimagine state government and look at what we’ve been starving in recent years – and [GPS] is an example of that,” said state Sen. Mae Flexer, a Democrat who was the chair of the legislature’s Task Force on Domestic Violence for years. “Let’s look at some of these things that we know have always been a problem and needed more money. Now we have money.”
State legislators were drawn to the idea of increasing GPS use after details of recent domestic violence homicides surfaced.
Over the last six years, 17 people were allegedly killed in domestic violence incidents in Connecticut even though judges had previously ordered the abusers to stay away from the victims and the abusers had been arrested for violating those orders before; some were even arrested multiple times before, a CT Insider analysis of case details shows.
And Connecticut has over the past two years seen a dramatic rise in accused domestic violence abusers being arrested multiple times for violating orders to stay away from, or stop threatening, their victims, a recent CT Insider investigation revealed.
Such cases beg the question: If court orders aren’t enough to stop abuse, what could?
“We want to get in front of behaviors before they escalate to the point of like the homicides that we’ve seen in the last few months,” said Angela Schlingheyde, the director of legal and court advocacy services at The Center for Family Justice in Bridgeport, whose team helps thousands of survivors each year through court proceedings. “Now is the time where our courts system has to step in and figure out how they’re going to treat those high-risk, high-lethality cases differently.”
For some, expanding GPS monitoring is a potential solution.
“I constantly think about how this change could have potentially saved Traci’s life,” Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan testified before the Judiciary Committee referring to the January murder-suicide of Traci-Marie Jones in Bethel.
State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan
H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media
Jones was allegedly killed by her ex-husband who had previously violated a court order to stay away and stop harassing her.
One month earlier, Julie Minogue, was allegedly murdered with an ax inside her Milford condo by the father of her 3-year old son, according to police and prosecutors.
“We believe that if [24/7 GPS monitoring] had been in existence at the time, it may have saved her life,” testified state Sen. James Maroney, whose district includes Milford.
State Sen. James Maroney
Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media
Minogue’s father, Gerald Minogue, also urged lawmakers to expand GPS use.
“Nothing will bring my daughter back, but I hope the passage of this law saves [the] lives of others who find themselves in a similar situation,” he testified. “It will make us all safer.”
Still, Minogue’s case exposes a potential loophole to GPS monitoring.
In the weeks leading up to her death, Minogue had reported the abuse and threats she endured to authorities. One month before her death, she reported to police that her abuser had allegedly violated a protection order she had against him by sending her 220 harassing and threatening text messages over 18 hours.
“His mission in life is to ruin my life. He wants to basically kill me,” she testified during an hour-long court proceeding last December five days before she was killed. “Because of him, I had staples in my head. He already tried to kill me.”
But, it was revealed after her death, that police had failed to arrest and charge her ex for the alleged protective order violation.
Even if the proposed GPS expansion was in place, Minogue’s abuser would not have been placed under monitoring because he had not been charged with violating a protective order.
A vigil was held in memory of Julie Minogue who was killed in her Milford home in December.
Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media
The existing GPS program
When releasing accused abusers from jail on bail – which the state Constitution requires – judges have the ability to set conditions for the defendant’s release. That includes monitoring by house arrest, regular substance abuse testing, mandated mental health treatment, house visits and GPS
Today, in most courts, the GPS systems in place don’t provide any real-time tracking; they only monitor daily whether someone went too close to the victim’s home or other off-limit zones.
“It will tell us that yesterday the offender was standing outside of your home,” said Maureen Platt, the state’s top prosecutor for the Waterbury region. “If you have somebody that says, ‘Drop dead, I’m going to do what I want,’ the odds of that escalating into a very bad situation are very, very real.”
Connecticut State’s Attorney Maureen Platt prepares for cases at Superior Court in Waterbury on May 2, 2023.
Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media
Both Platt and Waterbury Police Department spokesman Ryan Bessette said there could be value to increasing the use of live GPS monitoring.
Bessette said his officers currently work to track down individuals after they are asked to do so by prosecutors or the Judicial Branch, and eliminating the delay in that request would lead to people being arrested sooner.
It’s unclear how often delayed-GPS is used in domestic violence cases. Statewide, among all criminal cases, GPS was used on 2,100 defendants last year and cost $1.4 million.
The state has used real-time, 24/7 GPS monitoring for some defendants facing domestic violence charges and accused of violating protective and restraining orders in just three courts: Bridgeport, Hartford and Danielson. The program developed out of a pilot the state launched in 2010.
Last year, one in six defendants arrested in these areas for violating a protective order was deemed dangerous enough to warrant real-time monitoring.
If an alleged abuser gets too close to the victim, the victim is alerted immediately via a call to their cell phone from the state’s 24/7 monitoring center and police are notified when necessary. Historically, about 55 victims on any given day sign up to get the real-time notices. Last year, the cost was over $750,000.
But advocates lament that the state has never studied the effectiveness of either the delayed or real-time GPS tracking systems.
Some also criticize the state for not opening the program to more victims who may be interested in real-time monitoring.
Despite an 81% increase in protective order violations over the last two years, the number of offenders hooked up to live monitors decreased by 58% over that span, from a daily average of 207 defendants in 2021 to 86 in February.
The Judicial Branch attributes the drop to a policy change they made in 2022 that requires staff to monitor real-time alerts only when the survivor says they want those alerts. Before the policy change, branch staff would monitor the alerts 24/7 even if victims didn’t sign up to be alerted.
Several survivors in areas where the real-time system is used said they were never aware of it or were asked if they wanted to enroll, despite their alleged abuser regularly violating protective orders.
Instead, these victims were enrolled in the delayed GPS programs, which on a daily basis showed their alleged abusers continuing to ignore protective orders.
“We’ve had a few situations now where we know that they’re on GPS monitoring, and they’ll be literally driving back and forth in front of wherever one of our young moms is staying. This happened several times, and [they] oftentimes have a gun and they’ve been threatening to the family – and it’s really scary,” said Sunindiya Bhalla, executive vice president of Roca, a Hartford non-profit who helps dozens of women in the region get away from the violence consuming their lives.
Evidence GPS works?
The only evidence about whether 24/7 GPS monitoring improves safety for victims is anecdotal.
Reports the Judicial Branch completed in 2011 on the 2010 pilot include a rundown of the mechanics of the program; how it works and how many people participated, but no qualitative or quantitative research into outcomes.
Joe DiTunno, the Judicial Branch program manager of the pilot when it launched, said the implementation team “really did find that the offender was more compliant in most cases, not in every case, because this isn’t a panacea.”
“It’s a tool that prosecutors, judges in the court system can use to help them bring that protective order – which is a piece of paper – to life and to notify [the survivor] when the offender is near them,” said DiTunno, now a deputy director of family services for the branch.
Flexer, a Democrat whose district of Danielson has been part of the pilot, said the anecdotal evidence is strong enough to merit expanding GPS use and studying its effectiveness.
“I have heard what I consider to be anecdotes that should be believed from people who are being protected by [GPS]. It gives them peace of mind,” said Flexer. “In the absence of data, that seems like a good enough argument for the time being to expand it, as well as to ask Judicial to study it at the same time.”
State Sen. Mae Flexer is among those pushing for tougher Freedom of Information penalties.
Christian Abraham, Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut Media
But neither bill expanding GPS directly calls for such a study.
The closest thing, outlined in separate legislation, would set up a state panel to address systemic problems and potentially study issues like GPS, if they choose. That bill has been approved by the Senate and is awaiting action in the House.
Scanlon, the leader of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said researching the GPS program is critical.
“We want to actually answer the question: Is it effective?” said Scanlon. “Let’s take the time to do the real deep dive on the data and the research to actually come up with a proposal that could be effective and sustainable long term.”
Research across the country shows mixed outcomes for the various types of electronic monitoring for those on probation and parole after being convicted on charges of all types.
The limited research that exists for monitoring defendants released on bail is also mixed, according to an analysis of the studies by the Center for Effective Public Policy’s Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research group.
“There is no clear association between location monitoring and improved pretrial outcomes… Location monitoring results in increased technical violations,” the brief concludes.
When it comes to pre-trial monitoring of alleged domestic violence offenders, the research is even more limited.
Research in 2012 found some positive results. In two of the three parts of the country that research was done, those on GPS were less likely to be arrested for domestic violence-related issues and in the third location there was no difference.
But research in 2017 found no evidence that GPS monitoring of defendants reduced further domestic violence-related arrests and was “no more or less effective than traditional, non-technology based pretrial supervision.”
Lawlor, the former criminal justice advisor and professor, said how GPS is rolled out in Connecticut will ultimately determine if it is effective. Lawlor said state officials need to ask themselves: Is this GPS expansion meant to improve police response times when an abuser gets too close to their victim, is it to change the abuser’s behavior to comply with court orders or is it to help survivors feel more safe?
“The devil is really in the details,” he said. “Depending on what you’re talking about, it gets way expensive or not that expensive … If there’s X amount [of money] available to prevent domestic violence, maybe there’s a more effective and efficient way to expend that money.”
In February, a table was set up in front of the Brittany Shears hair salon where people left flowers and mementos honoring Traci-Marie Jones, a 52-year-old mother of three who worked at the salon and was killed at her home in Bethel.
H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media
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