LEGISLATIVE SERVICES AGENCY OFFICE OF FISCAL AND MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS 200 W. Washington, Suite 301 Indianapolis, IN 46204 (317) 233-0696 iga.in.gov FISCAL IMPACT STATEMENT LS 6480 NOTE PREPARED: Jan 21, 2022 BILL NUMBER: SB 9 BILL AMENDED: Jan 20, 2022 SUBJECT: Electronic Monitoring Standards. FIRST AUTHOR: Sen. Walker K BILL STATUS: CR Adopted - 1 st House FIRST SPONSOR: FUNDS AFFECTED:XGENERAL IMPACT: State & Local XDEDICATED FEDERAL Summary of Legislation: (Amended) This bill has the following provisions: A. Electronic Monitoring – It establishes standards, including staffing minimums and notification time frames, for persons and entities responsible for monitoring individuals required to wear a monitoring device as a condition of probation, parole, pretrial release, or community corrections. B. Immunity – It provides immunity for acts or omissions performed in connection with implementing monitoring standards. C. Escape – It provides that a defendant commits escape if the defendant disables or interferes with the operation of an electronic monitoring device. D. Juvenile Status Offender – It makes escape committed by a juvenile status offender a status offense under certain circumstances. E. It makes conforming amendments. Effective Date: July 1, 2022. Explanation of State Expenditures: Escape – A Level 6 felony is punishable by a prison term ranging from 6 to 30 months, with an advisory sentence of 1 year. The sentence depends on mitigating and aggravating circumstances. Assuming offenders can be housed in existing facilities with no additional staff, the marginal cost for medical care, food, and clothing is approximately $4,333 annually, or $11.87 daily, per SB 9 1 prisoner. However, any additional expenditures are likely to be small. (Revised) Division of Parole Services – DOC indicates that it should be able to meet these requirements with current resources. DOC currently sends information to the parole board when a parolee violate conditions of home detention. (Revised) Statewide Justice Reinvestment Advisory Council – The Council will compile the quarterly reports that it receives from local justice reinvestment councils and publish these online. The Indiana Supreme Court’s Office of Judicial Administration (OJA) would likely be required to publish these reports. The OJA currently publishes an annual statewide Home Detention Report. Explanation of State Revenues: Escape – If additional court cases occur and fines are collected, revenue to both the Common School Fund (from criminal fines) and the state General Fund (from court fees) would increase. The maximum fine for a Level 6 felony is $10,000. However, any additional revenues would likely be small. Explanation of Local Expenditures: (Revised) Juvenile Status Offender – Under current law, status offenders who are on home monitoring and violate certain home detention orders can be prosecuted as a Level 6 felony. This provision would likely not have any effect on state or local operations. It is unknown how frequently prosecuting attorneys file felony charges against juvenile status offenders who violate this law. (Revised) Electronic Monitoring – This provision would add new requirements to community corrections agencies and probation departments that monitor persons who have been charged (pretrial) and have been convicted of felonies that are both violent and nonviolent. Whether each agency has the capability to meet these new requirements will depend on their current resources. First, these agencies would be required to: 1) operate at certain staff to tracked individual ratios, 2) conduct face to face meetings with tracked individuals every 30 days who are either charged with or convicted of a violent crime, and 3) have the capability of transmitting details to obtain an arrest warrant within 15 minutes of detecting certain violations by the tracked individual. Second, community corrections agencies and probation departments would be required to transmit quarterly reports to the local justice reinvestment advisory council concerning the following statistics: • the total number of persons under supervision, whether they are under pretrial or post-disposition supervision, and the charges they are facing or have been convicted of • the number of persons under supervision assigned to each employee • the total costs and fees levied and collected • the number of persons under supervision whose supervision has been terminated and the reason for termination, and • the number of false location alerts or device malfunctions in the case of each person under supervision. (Revised) Additional Information – LSA surveyed community corrections agencies and probation departments which operate electronic monitoring of persons who are on home detention about whether these agencies met the standards specified in this bill. LSA received survey responses from 36 agencies that monitor offenders on home detention. These agencies received 6,116 incoming cases that were committed SB 9 2 by courts for the period between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020. The survey included questions about the capability of each agency to track offenders with adequate staff, the agency's capability to meet with offenders on a scheduled and random basis every 30 days, and each agency’s capability to contact courts or prosecuting attorneys to obtain arrest warrants for violent offenders within 15 minutes. Because not all programs accept violent offenders into their monitoring programs, some programs responding as not meeting these standards did not have qualifying people in their programs. The following table displays the survey results. Standard Meet or Exceed Standard Incoming Persons Tracked Not Meeting Standard Incoming Persons Tracked Ratio of Staff to Tracked Individuals 30 or fewer persons per staff if the tracked individual is charged with violent crime 15 2,550 21 3,556 30 or fewer persons per staff if the tracked individual has been convicted of violent crime 16 2,716 20 3,400 75 or fewer persons per staff if the tracked individual has been charged with a nonviolent crime 19 3,515 17 2,601 75 or fewer persons per staff if the tracked individual has been convicted of a nonviolent crime 20 3,681 16 2,435 Face to face meetings with tracked individuals Scheduled with each tracked individual charged with a violent crime every month 35 5,928 2 288 Scheduled with each tracked individual convicted of a violent crime 33 5,676 3 440 Random visit with each tracked individual charged with a violent crime 30 5,539 6 557 Random visit with each tracked individual convicted of a violent crime 31 5,539 5 577 Issue arrest warrant within 15 minutes if a tracked individual Charged with a violent crime experiences unexplained or undocumented communication loss with monitor 15 2,386 21 3,730 Charged with a violent crime and enters a prohibited exclusion zone 20 3,812 16 2,304 Charged with a violent crime and removes, disables, or interferes with a monitoring device 20 3,812 16 2,304 SB 9 3 Standard Meet or Exceed Standard Incoming Persons Tracked Not Meeting Standard Incoming Persons Tracked Convicted of a violent crime and experiences unexplained or undocumented loss of communication with the monitor 15 2,386 21 3,730 Convicted of a violent crime and enters prohibited exclusion zone 16 2,304 20 3,812 Convicted of a violent crime and removes, disables, or interferes with a monitoring device 16 2,304 20 3,812 Escape – If more defendants are detained in county jails prior to their court hearings, local expenditures for jail operations may increase. However, any additional expenditures would likely be small. Explanation of Local Revenues: Escape – If additional court actions occur and a guilty verdict is entered, local governments would receive revenue from court fees. However, the amounts would likely be small. State Agencies Affected: Department of Correction, Division of Parole Services; Indiana Supreme Court, Office of Judicial Administration. Local Agencies Affected: Community Corrections Agencies; Probation Departments; Trial courts, local law enforcement agencies. Information Sources: LSA survey; 2020 Indiana Home Detention Report, Indiana Office of Court Services, Indiana Supreme Court. Fiscal Analyst: Mark Goodpaster, 317-232-9852. SB 9 4