1991: EMASS Founded
EMASS, a private company offering alternative sentencing services to counties in Missouri, was founded by Michael L. Smith, a former state probation and parole officer with 17 years of field experience under his belt.
EMASS, a private company offering alternative sentencing services to counties in Missouri, was founded by Michael L. Smith, a former state probation and parole officer with 17 years of field experience under his belt.
According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article written by Jennifer Mann in 2012, EMASS signed a contract in July 2000 with the St. Louis Circuit Court to become a provider of post-conviction supervision for misdemeanor defendants.
Missouri's Department of Corrections brought pre-trial supervision programs to an end. In response to this, some jurisdictions in Missouri just established their own programs but the St. Louis Circuit Court decided to partner with EMASS to provide supervision. As a result of this relationship, EMASS was able to occupy a position within the criminal justice system that allowed them to quietly reap the benefits when the courts tacked on EMASS programs as a condition of bail.
EMASS was awarded a contract from the Missouri Department of Corrections / St. Louis County Justice Services to oversee a new alcohol monitoring program.
In 2012, EMASS and the 22nd Circuit Court in St. Louis signed an aggreement regarding the provision of private probation services by EMASS at the request of the court. This contract outlines that EMASS must keep records of all the cases they supervise and must be willing to be subject to yearly fee and service reviews by Associate Judges. Funnily enough, another clause in the contract states that employees of EMASS must not have some sort of interest (possibly financial) in EMASS that would prevent them from providing the services EMASS agreed to. While this makes total sense on an individual level, it seems ironic as EMASS has a vested financial interest in firmly establishing this relationship with the court.
In 2012, Jennifer Mann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote an article that presented information about EMASS that included the views of judges, bail bondsmen, and actual defendants.
On January 10th, 2019, a joint letter was sent to the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court in St. Louis by local criminal justice organizations, addressing the court's pre-trial practices. In this letter, these local organizations called out the court for allowing EMASS to unconstitutionally collect monthly fees for pre-trial GPS monitoring ankle bracelets and other services from poor residents in the St. Louis area.
Representatives from ArchCity Defenders, The Bail Project the St. Louis Public Defender's Office, the Mound Bar Association, the ACLU of Missouri, and the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center all signed the letter. Discussing the release of those who are ordered by the court to undergo some sort of court-ordered supervision, the letter says the following:
"However, this release comes at a cost, as individuals have to pay significant fees to this private company in order to remain free, and risk re-incarceration if they find themselves unable to pay. As a result, these presumptively innocent individuals are essentially shackled, often unconstitutionally, by the cost and burdens of private supervision, and their inability to afford such costs has resulted in re-incarceration. Those who benefit from the Circuit’s current practices appear to be private companies, not the St. Louis public.
According to this statement, the court does not make sure that individuals who are released to court-ordered supervision through EMASS services have the ability to pay for fees attached to this supervision. This spells bad news for indigent or particularly poor residents whose cases are assigned to EMASS even though the contract between EMASS and the court says such cases should be taken care of at no cost. Rebecca Rivas of the St. Louis American writes about the joint letter's release and lets us know that there have actually been no cases where poor residents passed on to EMASS haven't had to pay).
Robert Gable and his twin brother Ralph came up with the first electronic monitoring system many decades ago. Formally, the invention was documented as a "behavior supervision system with wrist carried transceiver". Such an invention, officially created by Ralph and colleague William Hurd, was meant to help at-risk youth using positive reinforcement techniques. Upon its creation, there was no guarantee that such a device would actually serve its intended purpose. Today, the use of wearables in the criminal justice system has gone away from the original vision the Gable brothers had; instead of a focus on rehabilitation, wearables (GPS monitors in ankle bracelets) are now an efficient punishment strategy that largely benefits the private companies that produce such technology.
In 1977, New Mexico district court Judge Jack Love was intrigued by a Spider-Man cartoon that featured a similar type of monitor. Spurred on by a major prison crowding problem that was plaguing the United States as a whole, and hitting Albuquerque particularly hard, at that time, Judge Love was convinced that remote monitoring was a viable solution. By the early 1980s he had partnered up with ex-computer salesman Michael Goss to create the GOSSLink electronic monitor bracelet and he had begun to use the device to monitor a small number of probation violators. EM took off from there.
By the mid-1980s, EM had expanded to around twenty jurisdictions across thirteen states, though still, fewer than a hundred devices were active at any given time in 1986. Companies tended to have regional control over EM manufacture and sales, and many quickly sprung up. It is important to realize that by this time, neo-conservative ideologies had become the mainstream line of thought regarding criminal justice; there was no talk of the rehabilitation that the Gable brothers had envisioned. Instead, these “first-generation” radio frequency devices just used one-way communication to tell monitoring agents whether the offender was within a small radius of their home telephone when they were expected to be.
Two big trends emerged with EM in the 1990s: first, “second-generation” devices, including GPS monitors that enabled 24/7 observation, were introduced. Second, the use of EM technology exploded -- to the point where over seventeen thousand devices were in daily use by 1994. These two trends were certainly related, but neither was singlehandedly responsible for the other; GPS did not develop a strong foothold in the market until the early 2000s.
SCRAM, which provides solutions to the criminal justice and electronic monitoring arkets, was founded just prior to the turn of the century. The company's flagship product, the SCRAM CAM or Continuous Alcohol Monitoring system, is widely used today by correction agencies and pre-trial supervision programs. Additionally, the company has rolled out a breath monitoring system, GPS monitoring system, and house arrest monitor since released the SCRAM CAM to market in 2003. All of these products are used by EMASS and a certificate establishing this relationship between EMASS and SCRAM Systems is shown on the EMASS website.
Over 100,000 people are watched over with some electronic monitoring system, which still represents only 1-2% of those involved with criminal justice system. Most states buy the monitors from private corporations (see SCRAM) that exercise varying degrees of control over the data that their devices put out; a few states, Missouri included, delegate oversight to private companies like EMASS as well.