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| Florida Switches to Biometrics For Youth |
| By Patrick Hyde |
| Published: 07/31/2002 |
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In a trend that became common this year, Florida legislators were forced to make dramatic cuts in its corrections' budget to help the state bridge an overall $1.3 billion shortfall, caused in part by a large drop in tourism tax dollars after September 11 and an overall sagging economy. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice budget, after a 10-day special session late last year, was reduced $58 million, or nine percent, resulting in a loss of 660 positions. Of the 660 positions, 165 were community youth leaders, whose responsibilities included administering an electronic home detention program while youth waited for placement in secure residential facilities. More than 400 pink slips were issued shortly after the special session, leaving the Department in a tough situation on short notice. 'These are tough times and tough decisions had to be made,' said DJJ spokeswoman Diane Hirth after the cuts were made. The loss of the community youth leaders affected supervision and contact capabilities with youth in the program. Until then, the community youth leaders averaged five face-to-face contacts with the youth per week to discuss problems, observe home environments, monitor progress, and determine schedules. Seeking an Alternative As a result of the reductions and the impact the loss of the youth leaders would have, the home detention program sought an alternative to the release of 1,200 youth statewide into communities with no supervision. Mike Dunn, supervisor of the DJJ's home detention program, contacted BI Incorporated, the state's provider of electronic monitoring services for the past eight years, to discuss the situation. BI Incorporated, which also operates four community corrections service centers for adults in Florida, suggested having the youth transferred to a recently released biometrics voice verification system as an alternative. The system, VoiceID, monitors youth through a series of daily telephone calls. Depending on a youth's schedule and curfew requirements, supervising officers define a series of random telephone calls to the youth's home, work, school or other pre-approved location. Up to 250 locations can be programmed into the system, if necessary, for each youth. In addition, youth must call in at specific times. The combination of inbound and outbound calls--scheduled and random--helps probation officers to monitor youth and ensure compliance with sanctions. VoiceID verifies a caller and his/her location in less than half of second. Youth are enrolled in the system by providing a digital 'voiceprint,' which is then matched against the caller's voice each time a call is placed and the caller repeats a series of random numbers. Enrollment takes about five minutes 'This system is not meant to replace the human element of supervision,' said Joanne Davis, BI product manager. 'Instead, it is meant to provide community corrections officials with a tool that reliably allows officers to identify callers and their locations throughout a day so that the officers are able to spend more time with high-risk clients.' Voice verification is one of the many technologies in the emerging field of biometrics, where traits of a person's body are used as a password, confirming the person's identity by a biological feature and matching it with a digital file. The password may be retinal or iris scans, fingerprints, facial recognition or voice. These technologies are quickly being incorporated into community corrections in an effort to reduce labor expenses and improve the number of accurate contacts that can be made with supervised offenders. BI partnered with the Irish firm VoiceVault to incorporate VoiceVault's technology into the VoiceID product. The FBI and CIA, among other federal security operations, have used voice technology for 20 years. 'We went with voice technology because we believe providing a voiceprint is less intrusive than some of the other biometrics choices,' said Davis. Florida DJJ officials, while admitting that the personal contact of the community youth leaders would be missed, felt voice verification would provide assurance that the youth would be in specified locations throughout the day as scheduled by the youth's probation officer. It's a Go In subsequent discussions, DJJ officials agreed to give the voice verification system a go--with an extremely tight deadline for implementation. In fact, from the time the DJJ layoffs were announced, the system was to be in place in less than a month. BI and DJJ officials worked closely to train staff at 26 detention locations via remote dial up to get them up to speed with enrollment procedures, the software and general procedures. On January 1, the system went 'live' with more than 500 youth entered during the previous month. Based on feedback from the department, BI made some quick adjustments to assist department staff and youth with set up and administration of the calls. The updates included: * A Spanish-speaking enrollment option * Several user-friendly prompts * 24/7 toll-free technical support specifically for the voice verification system The number of youth on the system has grown quickly to an average of 1,100 per month by March. After three months, more than 200,000 calls have been recorded through the system, with only a small percent of callers failing. Officials believe the system is taking hold as staff become comfortable with enrolling youth and handling alerts, which are faxed to the probation officers for review and possible action. Today, up to four calls a day, every day of the week, are being placed to youth on the system. 'While we will miss the human factor, the Department feels that the voice verification technology is capable of providing the electronic monitoring we need at a reasonable cost,' said Dunn. 'This assists DJJ in holding youth accountable. We are working closely with BI to educate ourselves in the most efficient and effective use of this technology.' The switch over to the voice verification system is generating the desired effect, officials believe: Youth released to the community are sticking to their schedules, resulting in an overall sense of their compliance to the probation officer's guidelines for release. In addition, substantial savings are being achieved. VoiceID is expected to save the state more than $4.2 million when compared to the $7 to $8 it cost to monitor each youth previously. There's no question the department would like to see the return of the community youth leaders and the one-on-one contact that was maintained with youth regularly. But that is not likely to occur soon, as Florida along with the nation, continues to grapple with the country's economic downturn. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, states nationwide face a $40 billion deficit. In the face of this, Florida and other states around the country will be looking for creative innovations to help them maintain public safety while saving money during these tight fiscal times. Resources Florida Department of Juvenile Justice http://www.djj.state.fl.us/ BI Incorporated http://www.bi.com VoiceVault Corporation http://www.voicevault.com Patrick Hyde is a freelance writer based in Boulder, Colo. He can be reached at pat.hyde@attbi.com. |
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