Milwaukee County corrections staff: Keeping Track.

Byline: Jack Zemlicka

Milwaukee County corrections staff could be tracking offenders using GPS technology under a proposal being considered. The pilot program's goal is to reduce the number of people using the Huber program.

That ambitious initiative is being developed by members of a Community Justice Council's (CJC) Jail and Huber subcommittee.

The committee is evaluating the county executive's proposal to eliminate the Community Correctional Center (CCC) and replace it with GPS (Global Positioning System) monitoring, said Milwaukee Chief Judge Kitty K. Brennan.

Jail and Huber committee chairman Ronald K. Malone envisions 50 offenders from the CCC will be selected for a pilot project which will work off of the Justice 2000 model for pre-trial monitoring.

While a test run could commence later this year, committee members admit several details need to be worked out before the county considers closing the doors on the CCC for good.

Six months ago, Brennan solicited members of the community to volunteer for several advisory committees designed to better coordinate court, law enforcement and other state agencies' operations. That has been no small task, admits Brennan, who is the chair of the 27-member Milwaukee County Community Justice Council.

Keep Options Open

Judge Jeffrey A. Kremers, who is the presiding judge in the Felony Division and a member of the CJC's Jail and Huber subcommittee, said that regardless of whether live GPS monitoring is successful, there will still be a need for some sort of Huber facility in Milwaukee.

Earlier this year, County Executive Scott Walker proposed a phasing out of the work-release facility in downtown Milwaukee, which is a converted hospital building. He suggested the closure would save the county $2.5 million.

But Kremers said that limiting options could actually increase costs if more offenders are sentenced to jail time.

If you present judges with only two choices (jail or electronic monitoring), that could cost the county more than having a facility that allows us to do both, said Kremers, who acknowledged that the current CCC is outdated.

Walker, who is a member of the CJC, said the success of the pilot project will likely dictate future need for a Huber facility.

It's been talked about, but it's still very much an open-ended question, said Walker. If the pilot is successful, does that alter the concerns expressed by Judge Kremers and others? We'll see.

Kremers said he spoke with judges in La Crosse...