Seventh LACCEI Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology (LACCEI’2009)
“Energy and Technology for the Americas: Education, Innovation, Technology and Practice”
June 2-5, 2009, San Cristóbal, Venezuela.
Juvenile Schedule Reinforcement through GPS Cell Phones
Andrew Strelzoff, PhD
The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA, andrew.strelzoff@usm.edu
Tulio Sulbaran, PhD
The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA, tulio.sulbaran@usm.edu
Lacey Duckworth
The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA, lacey.duckworth@usm.edu
ABSTRACT
Improving academic success of juveniles who have criminal records is a thorny problem. Many young
people in this category, despite various afterschool intervention program, boot camps and home arrest
monitoring fail to graduate from high school and with continuing criminal activity smoothly transition
from the juvenile to the adult justice systems. Studies of this problem have shown that juveniles who
are able to maintain a regular schedule of activities have a much better chance of academic achievement
and long-term success. This is the motivation behind home arrest systems, which enforce schedule
compliance through GPS monitoring. However, traditional GPS monitoring is not widely used for
juveniles because of the associated cost and the ungainly ankle box juveniles find unappealing (juveniles
regularly choose boot camp rather than wear the stigmatizing ankle bracelet). In addition, GPS
monitoring only provides delayed negative reinforcement - there is the threat that non-compliance will
result in arrest, which is often delayed until the next contact with law enforcement. This paper describes
early efforts to develop a new schedule reinforcement system for juveniles with more immediate
positive and negative reinforcement using inexpensive and aesthetically appealing GPS cell phones.
Keywords: Schedule Reinforcement
1. INTRODUCTION
In Mississippi, non-violent juveniles are given the opportunity to participate in an Intensive Supervision Program
(House arrest) in order to serve their felony sentence. House arrest occurs in an approved residence within the
community of the juvenile’s origin and requires the user to wear an electronic monitoring piece of equipment.
Software installed in this equipment is loaded with the allowed and prohibited locations. Typically, the only place
a juvenile is allowed to go is back and forth from work, one church service a week, treatment meetings, and
medical appointments (Epps, 2007). Enforcement of the house arrest system is left up to the parent/guardian of
the juvenile. When a violation is reported, the juvenile is picked up by law enforcement personnel (Harper).
Juveniles who are unable or unwilling to participate in the house arrest system serve a normal sentence in a
juvenile corrections facility or “boot camp” (Arnette & Stephens, 2000). Juveniles participating in house arrest
programs have a higher success rate of altering their behavior than those who choose not to participate (Geis,
2003). Although the success rate is high, many juveniles do not participate in this alternative to incarceration
primarily because of the expenses associated with house arrest monitoing, which most often be borne by the
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juveniles’ family. For the family of the juvenile under house arrest, the cost for house arrest and other monitoring
systems is approximately $1,000 per year (Harper). Since many juvenile offenders come from low income
households, this cost is prohibitive. Other reasons juveniles do not participate include the bulky and unappealing
appearance of the GPS device. Also, the locality of the offense may prevent the juvenile from participating due to
the high costs and required staff time associated with managing the system.
Juveniles are not the only ones who find problems with the current house arrest system. Some previous designed
system, such as that of Court Programs, Inc., was not an efficient system as it did not work as intended, due to the
failure to report an offense and the money associated with the system. Because some parents do not always report
house arrest violations, and the current system does not send a report to the youth court, most offenders are only
discovered after being picked up for a different offense(Harper).
This paper gives an overview of a new approach to juvenile house arrest using GPS enabled BlackBerry cell
phones paired with a Bluetooth bracelet. The BlackBerry is the device that monitors the individual and the
Bluetooth associates a juvenile with their blackberry.
In Mississippi, there are nearly 152 school districts serving 494,135 students. The current drop-out rate of these
students is 26.6% with a truancy rate of 31.8% (Mississippi Department of Education). This means that more than
13,000 students drop-out per year. The warning signs of students dropping out include: bad grades, feeling like
they do not “belong”, lack of interest, because their attention span is sustained at school, etc. Those who drop-out
are 10 times more likely to be placed in incarceration because for many, as previously stated, house arrest will not
be an option (Mississippi Department of Education). In Jones sCounty, MS, the juvenile correction facility can
obtain 26 juveniles. Each month, the facility contains approximately 10-12 juveniles, and is full about 2-3 times a
year (Harper).
This paper gives a working design in progress of a proposed alternative to typical house arrest equipment. The
following sections describe the design of the system, the status of the system, what remains before the proposed
system can be deployed to test subjects, as well as project milestones and obstacles that could arise.
2. PROJECT DESIGN
The components of the proposed system include a BlackBerry cell phone, software designed specifically for the
BlackBerry, a blue tooth bracelet, a registration application, and a database to maintain all necessary information.
The first component, the BlackBerry cell phone, contains the software for monitoring the juvenile to ensure the
House Arrest orders are obeyed. The BlackBerry is a user specific device because it contains the juveniles’ daily
schedule by including the prohibited and restricted areas, as well as emergency contact information, such as their
parole officer and e911 numbers. This information is stored in user-specific software, which is installed in the
BlackBerry after the juvenile is registered in the database.
In order to prevent this software from being tampered with by the juvenile, it is software is installed on the
BlackBerry as a continuously running executable. Since the purpose of house arrest is to motivate positive
behavior, the software also incorporates a reward system. If the house arrest orders are obeyed for a given
amount of days specified by the parole officer, the juveniles’ BlackBerry is rewarded points to use for ring tones,
images, internet minutes, etc.
In addition to the juveniles’ information, the software also determines if the juvenile is in the correction location
from assisted GPS within the phone. The term correct location entails more than the current location of the
juvenile as the time constraint on this location has to also be considered. If the juvenile is not obeying the
boundaries based on their location, then their parole officer is notified.
To prevent the juvenile from passing the BlackBerry to an acquaintance, the proposed system will be paired with
a Bluetooth Bracelet, additions to the software previously discussed. The BlackBerry will constantly be trying to
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sync with the BlackBerry to make sure they co-exist. If at any point they don’t, an alert message is dispatched to
the juveniles’ parole officer.
A juvenile must be registered in the database before being supplied a BlackBerry. This database is responsible for
maintaining and storing all data associated with the system. For example, it contains the juveniles’ personal
information (name, an ID number, address, schedule, etc.), and the daily tracking information of the juvenile. The
interface for the database is a webpage, developed using php, html, and JavaScript.
In order for the system to work as designed, a series of steps must be followed. However, once the juvenile
receives the BlackBerry the process becomes cyclic. The steps can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1: Steps for Setting up Proposed House Arrest System
Step
1
2
3
3a.
3b.
Title
Juvenile is registered in the database
Software is sent to the BlackBerry
Juvenile obtains BlackBerry and Bluetooth bracelet
Juvenile is monitored by GPS unit
If juvenile obeys rules, points are given
If juvenile does not obey rules, points are deducted and
counselor is notified
Figure 1 also illustrates this cyclic process.
Figure 1: Cyclic process for proposed juvenile tracking system
3. PROJECT STATUS
In order to complete the proposed project, four phases have been established. These phases include the following:
Project Investigation, which requires initial testing of equipment, survey of current technology and interface with
law enforcement, simulation, a study of the effectiveness and properties of the proposed system as it will be
deployed, primary development , where major software systems are developed including BlackBerry phone code,
server, secondary device interface(Blue Tooth), and pilot deployment, where the system is deployed to test
subjects.
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In Phase 1, project investigation, a meeting was scheduled with several law enforcement officials in attempt to
understand the existing house arrest system as well as determine if the current system could be improved. After
concluding the current system required improvement, several pieces of GPS enabled devices were tested,
resulting in the selection BlackBerry cell phone. To further confirm the BlackBerry was the correct alternative to
the existing system, we met with some law enforcement officials again to present the proposed device.
The next phase, simulation, requires the study of the effectiveness and properties of the proposed system as it will
be deployed. In this phase, several tests will be run in order to determine if the system will actually be effective.
In other words, will the phone be able to take into consideration the location of the individual against the location
stored in the database, determine if the juvenile is in the correct location, and report back to the counselor if a
violation occurs? Because there are not enough subjects who can test this proposed system, simulation will give
us a better idea if the system works according to the proposed design.
Depending on the results of Phase 2, determines if Phase 3, primary deployment, should be adventured. In this
phase is where the BlackBerry code, the server, and the blue tooth band will be programmed to work in unity.
In the last phase, pilot deployment, all proposed components would be combined and subjects would be given the
BlackBerry in order to determine if the proposed system works appropriately.
4. POSSIBLE OBSTACLES
By designing the system as described above, some obstacles could occur. The first obstacle would become
present when gathering datasets to run the simulation. An ideal dataset would be one containing tracings of daily
GPS cell phone activity. Due to the amount of information readily available on the internet, this might not be
such an obstacle. However, another obstacle could stem from not choosing a good dataset. This obstacle would
be the verification of simulation. Although the dataset exists, how can it be proven that triggering a violation will
truly be detected if the product is released? The only way to verify this is to run the simulation, and then test the
product in the field in order to be sure the software works according to the proposed design.
5. POSSIBLE OBSTACLES
Once this system is complete, tested, and proven to be successful, deployment could be a possibility. After
analyzing the current design of the current system, an idea for future research upon completion of my proposed
design occurred. From the database, we know that juvenile a and juvenile b have a specified schedule. Imagine
that juvenile a and juvenile b stick to their schedule fine as long as they do not encounter juvenile c. If either
juvenile a or juvenile b intersect juvenile c’s path, neither of the three obey the house arrest orders. From this
theory, it is possible to determine the names of juvenile a, b, and c. However, to know that c is the one who is the
troublemaker requires a little more effort. I propose that through the completion of my proposed system and data
mining, this information is possible.
REFERENCES
Arnette, J. L., & Stephens, R. D. (2000). From the Courthouse to the Schoolhouse: Making Successful
Transitions. U.S. Department of Justice. Washington, D.C.: United States Government.
Epps, Christopher B. (July 1, 2007) Alternatives to Incarceration. A publication by the Mississippi Department
of Corrections for use by Circuit Courts, District Attorneys, Public Defenders, Law Enforcement & interested
parties.
Gies, S. V. (2003). Aftercare Services. U.S. Department of Justice. Washington, D.C.: United States Government.
Harper, Judge Gaylon. Question & Answers Interview. October 9, 2008.
Mississippi Department of Education. Mississippi Education Quick Facts. http://www.onthebus.ms/press/mediaroom/Mississippi%20Education%20Quick%20Facts.pdf
Mississippi Department of Education. Dropout Facts & Stats. http://www.onthebus.ms/press/mediaroom/documents/DropoutFactsandStatistics.pdf
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Authorization and Disclaimer
Authors authorize LACCEI to publish the paper in the conference proceedings. Neither LACCEI nor the editors
are responsible either for the content or for the implications of what is expressed in the paper.
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