Broward County Sheriff's Office Awards BI Incorporated Large GPS Tracking Contract

BI Incorporated announced that it has extended it longstanding relationship with Broward County Sheriff's Office for at least three years and possibly longer. Specifically, BI will supply the Pretrial Services Division within the Sheriff's Office with a range of offender monitoring technologies, including GPS tracking systems, to help the division to supervise at least 580 pretrial defendants who have been diverted from jail to its community-based electronic monitoring program.

BI has supplied systems that use radio frequency technology to Broward County for 14 years; the inclusion of GPS tracking is new. Under this contract, 160 pretrial defendants will be monitored with GPS tracking systems. As many as 300 pretrial defendants and 120 defendants in the County's day reporting program will be monitored with other electronic monitoring technology.

Specific systems that are involved with this contract award include:

– ExacuTrack, a passive GPS system, and ExacuTrack AT, an active GPS system, two offender monitoring systems that include GPS tracking capabilities.

– GroupGuard Plus, a group supervision system that enables corrections agencies to accurately monitor up to 75 offenders living in one residence, such as group homes and halfway houses, so that they comply with court-ordered sanctions and agency orders.

– HomeGuard 200, a radio frequency electronic monitoring system that monitors the absence or presence of an offender in their residence.

– Voice ID, uses voiceprinting to verify that the offender is at the specified location through a series of random or scheduled phone calls to different locations throughout the day.

– Drive-BI, a portable device that allows supervising officers to verify an offender's presence from outside the offender's residence, workplace, or other authorized location.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office Pretrial Services Division is designed to divert criminal defendants from pretrial incarceration. It provides information to the judges and supervises pretrial defendants in the community in partnership with law enforcement.