Congressman Dan Maffei demanded reform in the federal probation system today outside the Syracuse Federal Building. Before allegedly killing Lori Bresnahan and sexual assaulting a ten year-old girl in March, David Renz managed to get out of his electronic monitoring bracelet without alerting authorities.
Legislators on both state and federal levels immediately looked into who was to blame. Congressman Dan Maffei started by looking into the effectiveness of the monitoring bracelets.
“But then it became clear that the problem here was not fundamentally a failure of equipment but a failure of personnel and a failure of policy at the Syracuse probation office.”
After analysis by the Congressional Research Service, Maffei has come up with three points of legislation he wants to install: The creation of an independent watchdog or Inspector General-like position that monitors the activities of all federal probation offices; Establishment of a nationwide standard of response to electronic bracelet alerts and making tampering with these bracelets a federal felony. Maffei says he hopes to introduce this legislation by the end of the July session. Probation officials ignored 46 alerts from Renz’s monitoring device prior to his escape.