BATON ROUGE, LA – Following a series of highly publicized failures involving court-ordered ankle monitoring, local officials announced the creation of a new independent contractor whose sole responsibility will be monitoring the companies responsible for monitoring ankle monitors.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, the new firm will not monitor offenders directly. Instead, it will monitor whether ankle monitor companies are properly monitoring offenders, and then submit reports documenting how well the monitoring companies monitored their monitoring responsibilities.
Officials say the arrangement adds a critical layer of accountability.
“We realized the problem wasn’t only that people weren’t actively being monitored,” one official explained. “The problem was that nobody was monitoring the people doing the monitoring.”
The new contractor will be required to submit weekly monitoring reports, monthly monitoring summaries, and quarterly monitoring audits to verify that all monitoring activities are being properly monitored.
Sources say discussions are already underway to hire an additional oversight consultant to monitor the new monitoring company, but didn’t offer much information about it.
“If recent history has taught us anything,” said one parish leader, “it’s that every failed monitoring program can be solved with another monitoring program.”
Budget documents show nearly 94% of the program’s funding will be dedicated to ensuring every monitor receives adequate monitoring.
