Covid-19 Prompts Law Enforcement Agencies To Use Autonomous AB Kiosks To Conduct Court-Mandated Alcohol Monitoring

Minneapolis, Minn. — (August 12, 2020) Each day sheriff deputies and jail supervisors screen thousands of people across the U.S. for alcohol use. Many are DUI offenders, jail inmates participating in work release programs, and those on probation for domestic violence and drug offenses. They have been ordered by the court to abstain from alcohol use as a condition of their release, and many of them are tested daily. In this age of the Covid-19 virus, law enforcement jurisdictions have begun using AB Kiosks® to autonomously conduct their alcohol monitoring programs, thereby eliminating face-to-face interactions between staff and clients.

Traditionally a sheriff deputy conducts portable breath tests (PBTs) using hand-held devices in the secure areas of a jail or courthouse. Clients typically call in to determine when their next screening will occur, and then make their way to the test site. There they wait for a deputy to escort them through security and administer the test. If the test is negative (no alcohol), the client is free to go. If alcohol is detected, the client is taken into custody. This testing takes a lot of time to administer and requires that deputies and clients have face-to-face contact and handle the same PBT device.

In January 2018, Precision Kiosk Technologies introduced the AB Kiosk – a secure, integrated system that autonomously coordinates and conducts alcohol screening from start to finish. Since its introduction, AB Kiosk systems have autonomously conducted more than 125,000 breathalyzer tests, with 99.9% of these showing no presence of alcohol. Spurred on by concerns over transmission of the coronavirus, five counties began using the AB Kiosk systems in June and July: Shelby County Community Corrections in Indiana, the Ann Arbor Justice Center and Washtenaw Sheriff’s Office in Michigan, and the McLeod County Sheriff’s Office and Hutchinson Police Services in Minnesota. There are now twenty five AB Kiosks in use in the Midwest, predominantly by county courts, probation departments, and sheriff’s offices.

The Kiosk issues notifications to the client to report for a test, uses biometric fingerprint authentication to verify the identity of the individual, captures video as it administers the breathalyzer test, and automatically uploads the test results to the client’s file. Operating without any direct supervision, the Kiosk can test up to 35 individuals per hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Deputies can access their offender-management program from any computer, smartphone or tablet. The system is also used by probation departments to autonomously conduct probation check-ins among low-risk clients, thereby greatly reducing face-to-face interactions between probation officers and their low-risk clients.

Because clients don’t have to wait for deputies to be freed up to administer the tests, the Kiosk also shortens their testing times by up to 90%. This speedy process reduces client parking costs and enables them to return on time to work, school, or child care pick-ups.