Vol. 37, Number 8—August 2005

Officers Connect with Wireless Technology

If you could take the office home with you, would you? Over 950 probation and pretrial services officers in 58 districts now say, yes, they'd take the office home—and to interviews of offenders, and in their vehicles, and anywhere else they can take a laptop. And more officers are waiting in line for the opportunity.

Last fiscal year, the Administrative Office's Probation and Pretrial Services Technology Advisory Working Group initiated a pilot study to explore mobile or wireless technology and how it might help probation and pretrial services officers. The study looked at the usefulness of mobile or wireless technology to officers overseeing offenders and defendants, writing reports, and accessing records. The original study of 91 officers in 24 districts found the technology to be so helpful, wireless access now has expanded to 58 districts and 956 officers.

Starting this fiscal year and continuing over four fiscal years, plans are in place to allocate funds for wireless access for about 3,000 probation and pretrial service officers, or 60 percent of all officers.

Wireless technology is Internet access by computer minus the phone lines that would normally tether an officer to his or her office. To access the Internet outside the office., laptop and tablet computers are equipped with wireless cards. Not surprisingly, officers found that going wireless saved time and increased their effectiveness.

In the pilot study, most of the officers reported using their wireless access in the field to read and respond to e-mails—reducing the number of e-mails they had to reply to when they returned to the office—and also to compile chronological (or chronos) case information on offenders and defendants. Participants in the pilot study found that using wireless technology this way saved them an average of 4.3 hours each month.

According to George Walker, Chief of Pretrial Services in the Central District of California, the most powerful use of wireless technology is in an officer's ability to access the Judiciary's internal Data Communications Network and websites to check for e-mails, and access policies and applications, including the Probation and Pretrial Services Automated Case Tracking System-Electronic Case Management System (PACTS-ECM).

"Anything you can do electronically is available with wireless and you have access to information anywhere in the nation," says Walker. "Everywhere I go, I'm connected. It helps me work and supervise officers better."

Glenn Horowitz, Deputy Chief Probation Officer in the Southern District of Florida, explains that wireless technology bridges the communication gap for officers when they're neither home nor in the office.

"Yes, PDAs are good repositories of data," says Horowitz, "but they can't interact with a database like laptops or PDA phones with a wireless connection can. They don't let you write reports, query PACTS, visit websites, or change schedules on the go."

Scott Chinn, Assistant Deputy Chief Probation Officer for the District of Columbia, currently has 13 officers equipped with laptops and wireless capability. "With our district's emphasis on telecommuting, wireless technology that adds mobility fits into how we work," said Chin. "Especially in the D.C. area with the available high speed connection, wireless makes our officers more efficient and effective."

Oscar Stephenson, Chief of Probation in the Northern District of Alabama, says he'd have a hard time taking wireless capability away from his officers.

"Wireless has done good things for us," says Stephenson. "We received 15 wireless cards for our laptop computers, and now we have officers lined up who want them. If we have the money next fiscal year, I suspect we'll give wireless access to any officer who wants it."

Wireless technology can be of particular value in electronic monitoring.

Says Tim McTighe, Chief Probation Officer in the Western District of Washington, "We use GPS (global positioning system) as part of our electronic monitoring program. With the addition of wireless technology, officers can determine the exact whereabouts of offenders on GPS at any time. They don't have to wait until they get a check-in call from the offender or an alert from the GPS provider, and it is easier to randomly confirm an offender's location."

From their cars and with a wireless connection on their laptops or tablets, officers can check license tags, verify offender addresses, obtain driving directions, check property records, check on unauthorized absences of offenders, and enter chronos and other PACTS information, without calling or making a trip back to the office. During home visits, officers can review and verify prior chronos and client information before leaving an offender's residence or place of employment, which eliminates a follow-up visit or phone call.

McTighe says officers in the field are at a real disadvantage without wireless access to e-mail and records.

"Eventually," he said, "we'll have investigators writing reports while they're interviewing offenders in jail facilities, signing the documents electronically, and e-mailing them back to the court, all without spending a minute in the office."

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