 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(April 2019) |
| Industry | Criminal Justice |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Anaheim, California |
| Website | www |
Sentinel Offender Services is a criminal justice services and original equipment manufacturing company based in Anaheim, California. The company was founded in 1993 by Robert Contestabile, who is currently the chairman. Tom Flies is chief executive officer. [1]
Sentinel provides courts, probation and parole departments, law enforcement agencies, and corrections agencies across the country with comprehensive case management and offender-management products, programs and services. The company has served customers in all 50 states and throughout North America. Sentinel pioneered the community-based offender-funded program model beginning in the 1990s in Los Angeles, CA. This allows an offender to pay for services, on a sliding scale based on their income, rather than making taxpayers pay for these services.
Sentinel offers several products and services, including:
All Sentinel programs are backed by a 24/7/365 call center. The company operates field offices. In each location it delivers programs and services that support local agencies with comprehensive offender management.
Sentinel is not a private probation company. The company does not have the power, authority or responsibility to enforce laws and execute warrants. The government agencies with which they contract have this power, authority, and responsibility.
Sentinel contracts with court systems and other agencies to collect fees, fines or restitution amounts on their behalf. Any fees collected are passed directly to the contracted party following agreed upon protocol. As a private services provider to courts, community corrections agencies and law enforcement. Sentinel can only carry out agreed upon contractual obligations on behalf of their customers.
Sentinel does not:
Sentinel has had Day Reporting Centers (DRC) in place in several states for many years. These DRCs provide a central location for offenders to check in with agencies, attend programs, receive services and meet certain court-ordered obligations. Each DRC offers a set of courses based on the unique needs of the local population of offenders being served. Courses and programs that have been offered included GED exam preparation, job skills, Cognitive behavioral therapy, moral reconation therapy , anger management, parenting skills, thinking for good, AA meetings and other substance abuse programs. [2]
The Nevada Division of Parole and Probation opened a DRC in Las Vegas partnership with Sentinel on October 31, 2017. Subsequently, a second DRC was opened in Reno.
The Center for Crime and Justice Policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas published a research brief [2] about the DRC in February, 2019. This study was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted among approximately 400 program participants. According to the research brief, primary objectives of a DRC are to:
According to the research brief, the results of this RCT after 12 months suggest that DRCs can achieve these objectives. The study is ongoing. Previous studies have produced inconclusive results.
In 2012, James Hucks filed suit against Sentinel Offender Services after an arrest warrant was issued for his wife because she did not pay all the fees she owed to the company during her probation. [3] In 2013, Georgia judge Daniel J. Craig ruled that Sentinel had to refund hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people who had paid them, and that private probation companies cannot collect fees from probationers after their probation has expired. [4] Later that year, Craig granted Sentinel a stay on this ruling, but, despite their attempts to persuade him to back down on it, refused to undo his restrictions. [5] In 2012, Georgia man Tom Barrett stole a can of beer and was later put on probation with Sentinel after being unable to pay a US$200 fine. He was later put in jail for two months after being unable to pay Sentinel's startup fee. As of May 2015, Barrett was suing Sentinel, and was being represented by Augusta attorney Jack Long. [6] On February 17, 2016, the Southern Center for Human Rights filed a lawsuit against Sentinel on behalf of two women from Cleveland, Georgia who were sentenced to 12 months probation each for not paying fines; the lawsuit also claims both women were told they had to undergo drug tests by a probation officer. [7]
In June 2013, Orange County, California discovered that Sentinel's GPS and home detention systems had multiple technical problems, which led the county to cancel their contract with Sentinel. [8] That September, an internal audit by Los Angeles County found that one in four of the Sentinel-made ankle monitors used to monitor serious criminals were faulty. Sentinel attributed many of these problems to errors by county deputies. [9]
In February 2017, Sentinel Offender Services was included in a lawsuit brought by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood along with Global Tel Link, Wexford Health Sources, GEO Group and many others for their roles in alleged violations of Mississippi's public ethics, racketeering and antitrust laws. [10] [11]
Electronic tagging is a form of surveillance that uses an electronic device affixed to a person.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a state agency of Mississippi that operates prisons. It has its headquarters in Jackson. As of 2020 Burl Cain is the commissioner.
Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration.
A probation or parole officer is an official appointed or sworn to investigate, report on, and supervise the conduct of convicted offenders on probation or those released from incarceration to community supervision such as parole. Most probation and parole officers are employed by the government of the jurisdiction in which they operate, although some are employed by private companies that provide contracted services to the government.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is the penal law enforcement agency of the government of California responsible for the operation of the California state prison and parole systems. Its headquarters are in Sacramento.
Coerced abstinence is a drug rehabilitation strategy which uses frequent monitoring and immediate punishment to reduce drug use among participants. This strategy can dramatically reduce recidivism rates among chronic drug users, especially those on probation and parole. Most probation agreements mandate drug treatment, but a coerced abstinence program mandates only abstinence which is enforced through regular, predictable drug testing. Under this system, failed tests swiftly result in a brief period of incarceration - usually for a few days. This policy option is advocated by a crime policy expert Mark A. R. Kleiman.
Proposition 83 of 2006 was a statute enacted by 70% of California voters on November 7, 2006, authored by State Senator George Runner and State Assemblywoman Sharon Runner. It was proposed by means of the initiative process as a version of the Jessica's Law proposals that had been considered in other states.
The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) was established under the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997 to oversee probationers and parolees, and provide pretrial services in Washington, D.C. The functions were previously handled by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the D.C. Pretrial Services Agency. For the first three years, CSOSA operated under trustee John "Jay" Carver, and officially became a Federal agency in August 2000.
The Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) operates nine prisons, four community release centers and 20 probation and parole offices in seven districts located throughout the state of Idaho. The agency has its headquarters in Boise.
The Walnut Grove Correctional Facility, formerly the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility (WGYCF), is a state prison in Walnut Grove, Mississippi. It was formerly operated as a for-profit state-owned prison from 1996 to 2016. Constructed beginning in 1990, it was expanded in 2001 and later, holding male youth offenders. It had an eventual capacity of 1,649 prisoners, making it the largest juvenile facility in the country. Contracts for the facility's operations and services were among those investigated by the FBI in its lengthy investigation of state corruption known as Operation Mississippi Hustle.
A rehabilitation policy within criminology, is one intending to reform criminals rather than punish them and/or segregate them from the greater community.
Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) is an intensive supervision program that aims to reduce crime and drug use while saving taxpayers' dollars spent on jail and prison costs. HOPE deals with offenders who have been identified as likely to violate the conditions of their probation or community supervision.
Private probation is the contracting of probation, including rehabilitative services and supervision, to private agencies. These include non-profit organizations and for-profit programs. The Salvation Army's misdemeanor probation services initiated in 1975, condoned by the state of Florida, is considered to be among the first private probation services. The private probation industry grew in 1992, when "local and county courts began outsourcing misdemeanor probation cases to private companies to alleviate pressure on overburdened state probation officers."
Judicial Correction Services, Incorporated (Delaware) (JCS) is a privately held probation company established in 2001 and based in Georgia. The company acts as a self-funding probation agency for local courts, mostly in the southeast United States. The company is part of the private "extra-carceral" or "alternatives to incarceration" industry, which includes private halfway houses, probation services and/or electronic monitoring. This industry, which includes services such as Judicial Correctional Service is "offender-funded", shifting the cost of probation onto probationers. The industry includes private extra-carceral institutions such as halfway houses, probation services and electronic monitoring.
Swift, Certain, and Fair (SCF) is an approach to criminal-justice supervision involving probation, parole, pre-trial diversion, and/or incarceration.
The Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform is a fifteen-member, non-partisan state commission tasked with conducting annual comprehensive reviews of criminal laws, criminal procedure, sentencing laws, adult correctional issues, juvenile justice issues, enhancement of probation and parole supervision, better management of the prison population and of the population in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, and other issues relates to criminal proceedings and accountability courts in the state of Georgia.
The Georgia Department of Community Supervision (DCS) is an executive branch agency of the U.S. state of Georgia. DCS is headquartered in the James H "Sloppy" Floyd Veterans Memorial Building with additional field offices throughout the state. DCS is tasked with: the supervision and reentry services of felony probationers and parolees; the oversight of adult misdemeanor probation providers; and, provides administrative support to the Georgia Commission on Family Violence (GCFV).
Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case holding that a local government can only imprison or jail someone for not paying a fine if it can be shown, by means of a hearing, that the person in question could have paid it but "willfully" chose not to do so.
Lifetime probation is reserved for relatively serious legal offenders. The ultimate purpose of lifetime probation is to examine whether offenders properly maintain good behavior as well as capability of patience under lifetime probation serving circumstance. An offender is required to abide by particular conditions for rest of their entire life in order to nurture superior social behaviour as a punishment for their criminal offence. Condition of probation orders contain supervision, electronic tagging, reporting to his or her probation or parole officer, as well as attending counselling. The essential component of lifetime probation carries the sense of being examined for well-being character and behaviour for life term period. Legislative framework regarding probation may vary depending on the country or the state within a certain country as well as the duration and condition of probational sentencing.
Electronic monitoring or electronic incarceration (e-carceration) is state use of digital technology to monitor, track and constrain an individual's movements outside of a prison, jail or detention center. Common examples of electronic monitoring of individuals under pre-trial or immigrant detention, house arrest, on probation or parole include: GPS wrist and ankle monitors, cellphones with biometric security systems, ignition interlock devices and automated probation check-in centers or kiosks.
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