History

BI Incorporated's storied history highlights a continual commitment to technological innovation and quality. Today, BI continues to introduce innovative approaches to the corrections industry by using the latest technology available and implementing evidence-based practices and programming. This is all achieved while maintaining a world-class quality standard, ISO 9001:2008.

BI was formed in 1978 in Boulder, Colo., as an engineering and consulting firm involved in research, development, and manufacturing within the Radio Frequency/Identification market. The development of the "electronic bracelet" was inspired by a Spiderman comic strip in 1977 read by Judge Jack Love, a New Mexico district court judge. In the comic, Spiderman was being tracked by a transmitter worn on his wrist. The judge convinced a computer salesman and his company to develop a similar device. In 1985, BI acquired this New Mexico firm, called National Incarceration Monitor and Control Services, to complete the development of this concept. BI began rolling out radio frequency offender monitoring systems in Florida, Kentucky, Oregon, Utah, Michigan, and Indiana for correctional agencies who viewed this as an alternative to detention.

BI's early electronic monitoring systems monitored the absence or presence of an individual in the home with the use of radio frequency technology. These systems included a transmitter worn by the offender and a field monitoring device installed in this person's home (together these devices are called a unit). The "unit" communicated with the host computer through ordinary phone lines, and monitored a person's schedules and curfews. While the technology for electronic monitoring has gotten smaller, more powerful and much more sophisticated, many of these principles for electronic monitoring still exist today.

In 1990, BI acquired a firm in Anderson, Indiana, called Security Research. This site became the future home of BI's sophisticated 24/7 national monitoring center, the BI GuardCenter^®. Throughout the 1990s, BI rolled out various offender monitoring technologies, such as BI 9000^®, BI Drive-BI^®, and other radio frequency-based systems. BI also continued to acquire firms such as Guardian Technologies of Cincinnati, Ohio, to gain additional expertise and patents helpful for future product development.

In 1995, BI earned ISO 9001 certification for its quality management, manufacturing, monitoring operations and customer service processes. BI has maintained this high level of quality to date and is currently ISO 9001:2008 certified.

In 1997, BI entered the day reporting service field when it acquired Denver-based Peregrine. This began BI's expansion into treatment and training programs at community-based day reporting center locations. Targeting parolees, probationers and pretrial defendants, these programs today include sophisticated supervision, treatment and training programs based on evidence-based principles and behavior change techniques. BI operates day reporting programs nationwide today.

In 2000, BI introduced its next generation monitoring system, HomeGuard^® 200. This electronic monitoring system became the most widely used electronic monitoring system in corrections history. In the same year, BI introduced an alcohol compliance system called BI Sobrietor^®. Since 2000, BI has accelerated its drive to meet the needs of community corrections with many products and services such as GuardWare^® on the Web, a "lights out" system that allows officers to conveniently access and manage client data remotely through the Internet.

A year later, in 2004, BI was selected by the Department of Homeland Security to manage a program called the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program and supervision offices were opened in Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Kansas City, St. Paul, Portland, Denver and San Francisco. BI still operates this program today.

Also in 2004, BI took a major step forward in offender monitoring when it introduced BI ExacuTrack^®, the first in a series of offender tracking systems that incorporated Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. ExacuTrack^® caught on quickly with customers due to its well-designed interface and reliability. The introduction of ExacuTrack was followed by BI ExacuTrack AT, an active GPS tracking system in 2006, and then ExacuTrack One, a one-piece GPS tracking system, in 2009. All these GPS tracking systems allow supervising officers to effectively manage where an individual has traveled during the day.

In 2008, BI celebrated its 30th anniversary. While this summary highlights the major milestones, BI has introduced many other products and services in the community corrections field that sets the company apart from other providers in the criminal justice field. Today, BI has approximately 900 contracts with federal, state and local agencies for products and services.