Philadelphia hearing questions wide use of GPS monitoring for justice-involved youth

Philadelphia City Council held a joint public hearing Nov. 1 to examine the use of electronic monitoring and GPS ankle monitors for youth involved in the city’s juvenile justice system.

The hearing brought youth and family advocates, representatives of the device vendor Trak Group, probation and Department of Human Services officials, the Defender Association, the district attorney’s office and academic researchers into the same room as council members to discuss whether GPS serves as a safety tool or an extension of surveillance.

Young people and community advocates described pervasive harms tied to monitoring. “Being a kid with GPS is not treatment for me. It is embarrassing being outside with a block on your ankle,” 19‑year‑old Joshua Levin told the committees, saying the device kept him from work, programming and stable housing. Another youth, Levi Sirleaf, said he was confined to his home, “even had to get permission to step outside my front door,” and described a false violation he said probation initially reported before the matter was cleared.

Paris Bright, a court advocate with YEAH Philly, said the city’s use of ankle monitors “is not about guidance nor growth. Its primary focus is controlling youth.” Co‑CEO Kendra Vanderwater said national research shows monitoring does not reduce recidivism and that “families often face hundreds of dollars in monitoring fees,” calling for public reporting of who is monitored, for how long and who profits from vendor contracts.

City and court officials described GPS as a tool intended to keep young people in the community rather than in secure detention. Kimberly Ali, commissioner of the Department of Human Services, said DHS funds approximately 350 GPS units at an FY26 cost of about $1.3 million and that “GPS units allow youth who might otherwise be detained at the PJJC or placed in a longer term residential setting to live at home, attend school or vocational opportunities, and participate in community based services.”

Faustino Castro, chief probation officer for the juvenile branch, described GPS as one element of supervision that can be paired with court‑ordered services. Castro said the city’s inventory is roughly 300–350 devices, that the department had 306 youth on GPS at the time of the hearing and that youth placed on GPS in 2024 averaged about 68 days. He said GPS has been used to keep some youth away from neighborhood locations that probation and police describe as safety risks and gave examples in which GPS location data was used alongside video and other evidence in shooting and robbery investigations.

Trak Group chief revenue officer Matthew Swando described how the devices work: ankle‑worn hardware receives satellite signals to calculate location and uses cellular networks to report latitude and longitude to a vendor platform, which agencies use to set inclusion and exclusion zones, schedules and alerts. Swando said devices record positions frequently, report to the vendor’s software and are supported by a 24/7 monitoring center.

Much of the committee’s questioning focused on accuracy, transparency and ownership of data. Council members asked whether the vendor or the First Judicial District owns the location records, how long the records are retained, and whether law enforcement or federal agencies may access the data. Swando and probation officials said the vendor stores data under contract and that the city/First Judicial District own the data; the vendor said vendor systems are required by contract to retain records (the vendor testified to typical contractual retention of seven years). Probation officials said the department provides GPS information to police when investigators request it and said they comply with investigative needs.

The Defender Association and some council members raised civil‑liberty concerns. Keisha Hudson, chief defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, called GPS “a shackle” and urged written criteria for when monitoring may be imposed, limits on duration, mandatory public reporting and reinvestment in community programs. Professor Kate Weisberg of the University of California, San Francisco, who studies surveillance and juvenile justice, told the committees that the empirical record does not show reliable evidence that monitoring reduces recidivism for youth and warned that the technology is not reliable in basements, elevators and other urban microenvironments.

Advocates and council members also highlighted financial and procedural burdens: witnesses said families sometimes face monitoring fees (testimony cited routine fees around $69 per month, and programs and fee waivers exist in some cases), and several young people said their probation officers or judges did not adequately explain the device rules. Youth and advocates described difficulty getting preapproval for job interviews or family events and said false alerts sometimes produced immediate enforcement responses.

No vote was taken during the hearing. Council members asked the First Judicial District for copies of the vendor contract and any memoranda of understanding, and they asked DHS, probation and the courts for aggregated data showing how many youth are placed on GPS each year, the charges that prompted monitoring, the reasons for technical violations, the number of motions brought because of those violations and final adjudication outcomes. The district attorney’s office offered to convene a multi‑stakeholder working group to review policy and practice.

Council members and witnesses identified several near‑term reforms to explore: public reporting of GPS use and vendor profits, clearer written rules for when monitoring may be imposed and when it should be lifted, improved front‑end explanation of rights and conditions for youth and families, consistent pathways to community‑based services, technical review of device reliability, limits on device features such as audio, and contract language limiting sharing of location data to law enforcement requests supported by warrants. Advocates urged a stronger pivot of resources from monitoring toward evidence‑based community programs such as multisystemic therapy, functional family therapy, restorative justice, mentorship and evening reporting centers.

The committees recessed the hearing and said they would follow up on requested documents and data and consider next steps, including a working group and possible budget or policy actions.