Lexington-based Corrisoft specializes in developing “smart solutions” that assist correctional agencies in monitoring nonviolent offenders while also encouraging those individuals to remain accountable and to avoid incarceration.
Its technology is designed to replace the hardware of ankle bracelets for parolees with a proprietary smartphone built around the company’s own operating system, a tether device that makes sure the parolee is carrying the phone, and an app installed on the person’s personal phone.
Alan Eargle
“We are building a toolbox for agencies to have better lines of communication, to make sure people show up to their court appointments on time, to make sure that people are making the behavioral changes necessary to reintegrate back into society,” said Corrisoft CEO Alan Eargle. “All of these are designed to help make those individuals’ lives better.”
Corrisoft (a mashup of the words “corrections” and “software”) contracts with court systems, work release programs, pretrial services and other monitoring agencies to provide technology-based solutions based on their needs. Its core smartphone-based products are called AIR, which stands for alternatives to incarceration via rehabilitation, and Informer.
The original electronic monitoring technology, using radio waves and a device worn on a belt, was developed in 1964 by graduate students at Harvard to track juvenile offenders and reward them for good behavior. Since the 1980s, however, ankle monitoring has been utilized on a punitive basis rather than as positive reinforcement.
“We legislate and operate to the worst possible case scenario,” Eargle said of the American justice system. Depending on the study, recidivism rates—released prisoners who wind up in jail again—can be as high as 68 to 75 percent.
Eargle sees Corrisoft as helping to change the conversation toward positive reinforcement and rehabilitation, and likewise encouraged to see criminal justice reform moving in a similar direction. “In five years, I’ve seen the attitude toward returning citizens almost completely change 180 degrees on a national level,” he said.
Corrisoft’s technology can be customized for each individual’s situation, such as juveniles going to school or employees going to work, and is programmable for daily or weekly check-ins or 24/7 tracking.
In the pretrial system, it can be used by those who can’t afford to cover a bond or bail. Instead of being put in jail while they await trial, he or she can agree to be digitally monitored. “By the way, as taxpayers we’re paying $60 to $100 a day to keep them in prison,” Eargle said.
Founded in 2011 by Brian Poe, who is no longer associated with the company, Corrisoft is owned by Memphis-based NFC Investments. Eargle came on board in 2014 as VP of finance. “I really just loved the company,” he said. “I loved who we were targeting, who we were helping and, cut to five years later, I have done just about every role in the organization.”
Corrisoft’s clients include corrections agencies and court systems in 13 states and in Mexico. The company currently employs 48 people and maintains headquarters in the University of Kentucky’s Coldstream Research Campus, where the software is developed, the tether devices are manufactured, and the call center is operated.
“In the moment of accountability, when needed, it’s pushing these people gently back on the path to success." —Alan Eargle
Over the past few years, Eargle and the executive team have begun to shift Corrisoft’s focus from a technology-based company (smartphones to replace ankle bracelets) to a communications solution firm.
“We don’t need a phone to be an ankle bracelet; we need our technology, our software, to be a set of guardrails,” Eargle said. “In the moment of accountability, when needed, it’s pushing these people gently back on the path to success. Rather than trying to catch a driver doing 56 in a 55 mph zone. That’s a mantra we’ve taken on.”