Responding to Electronic Monitoring Alarms

Introduction

The monitoring company is responsible for responding to alarms from EM devices. This topic covers which alarms are responded to, and what action is taken.

Types of alarms

The monitoring company receives more than 30 different alarm messages relating to the EM of offenders.

• Message alarms relate either to curfew information or equipment function.
• Equipment alarms relate to either tampering with equipment or maintenance of equipment.

Response to curfew violations

The monitoring company investigates and reports to CPPS the following alarm messages about curfew violations.

Important: Probation officers must record and investigate every curfew violation that is received from the monitoring company.

All violation reports should be kept on the offender's file and the results of the investigation should be recorded in the offender's casenotes.

Response to equipment alarms

The monitoring company will investigate and respond to all equipment alarms.

The table below outlines key equipment alarms that may signal that the equipment has been tampered with.

The monitoring company is not obligated to notify the probation officer of all equipment alarms immediately. They will record the alarm and any action taken.

The probation officer should be aware of these alarms and review each instance with the offender. This may be done as part of reviewing the weekly events reports.

Note: In some cases these alarms may be set off by the security officer when they are on the premises:

• responding to another alarm, or
• maintaining the equipment.

Diagram

The diagram below shows the process the monitoring company follows when responding to an alarm.

Note: The security officer does not have a legal right to insist on entry into the offender's residence.