H.A.S NEWS
INDUSTRY NEWS
Some prisoners on medical parole are being placed in nursing homes, and opinion is divided on whether they are a threat to the public or to the homes’ other residents.
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New York State revamps its policy on parolees, reducing the number that are returned to prison for minor parole violations; new guidelines sort parolees as low- or high-risk and tailor their supervision accordingly, in an effort to reduce recidivism rates. Photo (M)6
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The lawyers for Barry Bonds paid $455 and filed a notice to the federal trial court in San Francisco late Wednesday, saying that Bonds was asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal to toss out his conviction.
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One court program to help keep offenders from returning to prison has had a 100 percent success rate; another, 88 percent. Both are being eliminated because of budget cuts.
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A reader responds on an editorial regarding parole and the death penalty.
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A reader responds to an editorial on the use of parole in the justice system.
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A fair-minded society should not sentence anyone to life without parole except as an alternative to the death penalty.
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Authorities said that Casey Anthony, who has remained hidden since a jury acquitted her of killing her daughter, was polite and cooperative during a meeting with her probation officer.
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 Parole hearings take on new urgency for victims’ families as California copes with prison overcrowding.
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Charles Baeza, 72, tried to buy a gun and silencer from an undercover officer, the police said, 20 years after he was convicted of killing his estranged wife.
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Casey Anthony must return to Orlando within two weeks to serve a year’s probation for check fraud, a Florida judge ruled Friday.
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Patrick Gleason, an ex-convict from Maywood, has a starring role in a new independent film, “Fancypants.”
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A Moscow court on Monday refused a parole request by Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the jailed former oil tycoon, citing a lack of proper paperwork.
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States must rethink parole and probation policies that drive hundreds of thousands of people back to prison every year, not for new crimes, but for technical violations.
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A former Congressional aide who pleaded guilty in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal was sentenced to probation rather than prison on Wednesday.
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Actsoft’s House Arrest Solution operates on Motorola Bluetooth enabled handsets through the Sprint Nextel iDEN wireless network. 
Actsoft software uses Bluetooth technology as the chief communication protocol between wireless handsets and the ankle bracelet. The handset serves as the primary communication device and the Bluetooth ankle bracelet operates as a secondary device.
The handset is responsible for locating, establishing and maintaining a constant connection with the bracelet.
As the primary device, the wireless handset continuously queries the ankle bracelet to determine if it is within acceptable range. Based on the level of Bluetooth in the bracelet, the range is approximately 30 feet. Each bracelet has a unique 12-character Bluetooth address enabling it to be identified independently.
During the initial fitting of the ankle bracelet, the offender’s baseline levels for various sensor items are set, including:
- Ethanol level to monitor alcohol consumption
- Infra Red to determine tamper events
- Temperature to monitor changes in body temperature
- Battery level to monitor charging requirements
Following baseline configurations, the application regularly monitors each bracelet’s status sensors. A unique feature of the bracelet is a built-in alcohol sensor, which detects traces of Ethanol in a person, indicating alcohol consumption. This innovative element differentiates Actsoft’s solution from most competitors.
Actsoft’s software also has the ability to store events and alerts in a history file. Agency personnel are alerted when an offender steps out of range or violates a condition (e.g. a pedophile cannot go within 2000 feet of a school). The device also provides a voice alert to the offender when the battery needs to be recharged.
Often there are multiple offenders within an agency’s House Arrest program, all with different specifications and conditions. HAS allows personnel to customize and configure program parameters to meet specific terms and conditions of each offender’s House Arrest mandate. This cutting-edge solution provides agency personnel with information necessary to keep all offenders within agreed parameters.
Actsoft has a very user-friendly computer interface that provides agencies with core technology to efficiently manage, monitor and control their overall Electronic Monitoring Program.
In addition to the user interface, Field Officers and Case Workers have the ability to track offenders on their own handsets using Officer View, which shows the offender’s historical breadcrumb trail. Using this data, Field Officers know the offenders’ location at all times.
Reports illustrate all arrivals and departures from inclusion and exclusion zones for each offender, displaying date, time and location of events.