Harris County officials announced big changes to the county’s electronic ankle monitoring program, moving it to round-the-clock operations and strengthening protections for survivors of domestic violence.
Commissioner Adrian Garcia of Precinct 2 spearheaded the effort, securing $1.4 million in funding through Commissioners Court to expand Harris County Pretrial Services staffing and technology. The announcement was made alongside District Attorney Sean Teare, Pretrial Services Executive Director Natalie Michailides and Barbie Brashear, executive director of the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council.
Until recently, the county’s ankle monitoring program operated largely during standard business hours. That meant a tampered device — cut on a Friday night, for example — might not trigger a response until the following Monday morning.
“It doesn’t matter and should not matter what day of the calendar it is, and it should not matter what time it is,” Garcia said. “This is the problem that we are here to announce that has been fixed.”
Under the new system, when an offender cuts or tampers with a device, an alert goes out immediately. The county’s monitoring vendor, Sentinel, automatically notifies the presiding judge and attempts a video check — similar to a FaceTime call — with the defendant. If the defendant does not respond, Sentinel contacts the Harris County Sheriff’s Office directly.
“Fewer steps, faster action,” Garcia said, describing the previous process as “bureaucratic.”
The commissioner cited the case involving capital murder defendant Lee Gilley case as a catalyst, after Gilley cut his ankle monitor on May 1, left his home in the Heights on a bike, somehow boarded a private plane in Memphis, according to sources, and then took a commercial flight from Canada to Milan.
Garcia said the incident, combined with the right partners now being at the table, accelerated the effort.
“It accelerated and we had the money to appropriate it,” Garcia said. “So it’s both.”
Michailides said the agency determined that 15 new pretrial officers would be needed to provide true 24/7 alert coverage for defendants accused of violent crimes.
“Today, I’m proud to share that we’ve hired three people with 12 more to go,” Michailides said.
New staff are currently in training, a process Michailides said takes approximately six to seven months to complete. She emphasized, however, that process improvements already underway have begun closing gaps even before full staffing is in place.
The $1.4 million appropriation covers electronic monitoring expansion by adding the staff members.
Michailides would not address whether anyone in her office faced repercussions in connection to the Gilley case, but shared that all policies and procedures were followed.
Asked whether these new procedures being in place on May 1 would have stopped a defendant from getting all the way to Italy before anyone knew, Michailides said she didn’t know.
A significant focus of the announcement centered on survivors of domestic violence, who can now receive added protections through both GPS monitoring of defendants and a mobile app called the Advocate app.
Under court order, defendants in domestic violence cases can be required to wear a GPS monitor. Authorities can track the defendant’s location and alert a survivor if the defendant enters a prohibited exclusion zone.
“If the offender gets too close to the survivor, the offender gets a notification and the offender is contacted and told that he or she is absolutely too close, and that call can stop a bad situation from becoming worse,” Garcia said.
The Advocate app provides near-real-time notifications directly to survivors when a defendant approaches their vicinity.
Teare called the app a game-changer for domestic violence cases.
“We all know that the most dangerous point for any survivor of intimate partner abuse is immediately after outcry and then immediately after release,” Teare said. “Having that ability to notify the survivors and get them to enact their safety plan will save lives.”
Brashear, who said she has spent more than three decades working with domestic violence survivors, framed the announcement within a broader call for systemic accountability.
“We cannot expect survivors to navigate their way to safety through systems that are not effectively connected to one another,” Brashear said.
She described what is often asked of survivors: calling police, navigating courts, understanding protective orders, communicating with prosecutors and finding advocacy services — all while maintaining daily life and managing the ongoing threat of violence.
“We’ve placed far too much responsibility for safety on the people who are experiencing the violence rather than our systems to be responsible for responding to it,” Brashear said.
Brashear was clear that GPS monitoring alone is not a complete solution.
“GPS monitoring cannot prevent every act of violence,” Brashear said. “We must continue investing in advocacy, housing, flexible financial assistance, and other pathways to safety.”
When an alert is triggered in a domestic violence case, pretrial services now enters the information into the Computer-Aided Dispatch, or CAD, system used by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, generating a call for service to check on the welfare of the survivor.
Garcia also highlighted the role of the Violent Persons Task Force, known as VIPER, as a key part of the response infrastructure.
There are currently approximately 1,800 people on ankle monitors countywide in Harris County, officials said Monday.
Officials acknowledged the system is not yet perfect, and that staffing will take months to be fully deployed. But they expressed confidence the collaborative framework now in place marks a significant shift.
“Our job is to make sure that when something goes wrong, someone is there to see it and act on it and protect the public and the survivors,” Garcia said. “Whether it is 2:00 in the afternoon or 2:00 in the morning, it doesn’t matter. This is what public safety should always look like.”
