House Arrest via GPS Tracking

Genesee County sheriff has new tracking system

peopletrackusa — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:36:47 +0000

Program is designed to track down seniors

By Dawn Jones

GENESEE COUNTY (WJRT) — (02/10/09)–The Genesee County Sheriff’s Department has a new tool to help keep seniors safe.

Sheriff Robert Pickell unveiled a new GPS tracking device for seniors suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Every day, someone who suffers from dementia and Alzheimer’s wanders away from home. This new GPS system will help quickly locate the patient.

It’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and it can track a person’s every move.

This little locator is less than 2.5 ounces … is what we will use with our Alzheimer’s patients,” he said. “We are going to monitor this 24/7, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Last year in Mid-Michigan, two Alzheimer’s patients wandered away from their caregivers. By the time they were found, it was too late.

“That was a lot of the impetus and really the catalyst for us thinking about coming up with some sort of a GPS system,” Pickell said.

Through a Weed and Seed grant, the county was able to purchase 50 of the devices and will give them away free of charge.

The program goes online Monday.

For more information, contact the Elder Abuse Prevention office at (810) 762-4022.

Did police mishandle dementia situation?

peopletrackusa — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:35:02 +0000

By Marcus Solis

YONKERS (WABC) — She was found wandering on the streets. A cabbie picked her up and took her to a police station in Yonkers. But instead of taking her home, police put her right back in the cab.

Now, the angry family is demanding answers.

At 86, Ella Toone is suffering from dementia, possibly the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. One night in March, she wandered away from her apartment, something that took her daughter by surprise.

“Her memory is getting bad and what have you, but I never thought she left the house,” daughter Mary Burton said.

Toone ultimately made it home safely, but the incident has her family angry over what Yonkers police did, or allegedly, failed to do. It was 3 a.m. when an attendant saw Toone wandering near a gas station. He called a taxi, but the Toone couldn’t tell him where she lived. So the driver took her to a police precinct. According to the family, officers went through Toone’s bag, found her address and told the cab driver to take her home.

Back at the senior citizen complex, Toone didn’t have keys. So the driver went through her bag and found an emergency contact card with Mary Burton’s phone number.

“If had not been for the cab driver, I would not have been aware of this incident,” Burton said. “It could have continued.”

Westchester County recently began a program that gives Alzheimer’s patients bracelets embedded with a GPS tracking system. But in a statement, Yonkers police acknowledge they do not have a policy, “specifically on dealing with Alzheimer’s patients. Policy and procedures do not and never will cover all situations that police officers are faced with everyday.”

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WEB PRODUCED BY: Bill King

GPS Has New Function: Helping Police Track Criminals

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:07:08 +0000

By Jason Szep

May 20, 2008 7:23AM

Coast to coast, the authorities are expanding electronic monitoring to fight crime. They are moving beyond its early use in tracking movements of sex offenders to include gang members who have been released on probation, people accused of repeated violence against women and even truant students at schools.
Electronic surveillance technology is changing the way the authorities in the United States monitor repeat offenders. Its advocates say the new technology can save lives. Its detractors fear a widening breach of civil liberties and an illusory sense of protection.

At the heart of the surveillance is a technology best-known for helping people on the road: the Global Positioning System, or GPS. Other countries are watching closely. GPS monitoring is already established in parts of Europe but applied more narrowly, and it is growing fast in Latin America, said Jeff Durski, spokesman for iSECUREtrac, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska, and makes the devices and leases them to the police and courts.

Massachusetts, one of the first states to employ it in 2006, has about 700 people fitted with electronic bracelets that send signals via satellite to computer servers if they go places they should not — “exclusion zones.”

The Massachusetts law, which allows judges to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of a restraining order, has become a model for other states. The Oklahoma Senate voted 47 to 0 in April to enlist GPS technology to protect victims of domestic violence. The Illinois House of Representatives unanimously passed similar surveillance legislation last month.

Part of the appeal is the cost savings. GPS is a cost-effective alternative to prison, said Paul Lucci, deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Probation Service, pointing to a chart taped to his office wall showing a state-wide surge in use of GPS, mostly to track sex offenders but also for others. “These people probably should be in jail, but the cost of incarceration can be as much as $30,000 or $40,000 a year,” he said. “The GPS costs about $3,400 a year.”

He added: “I think it’s good on both sides. It is a device to protect the public. Although we can’t guarantee anyone’s safety, it provides an extra level of supervision on somebody. On the other side, for a defense attorney, it is in lieu of incarceration.”

The Massachusetts law was inspired in part by statistics: Over 1,000 women are murdered each year in the United States by intimate partners. The law allows the police to be alerted whenever an offender enters a restricted zone, like near a woman’s home or office.

“It’s more than just slapping a GPS on a guy,” said Diane Rosenfeld, a Harvard law professor who helped draft the Massachusetts law. “You have to really have an intelligent coordinated approach to it and then it really can save lives.”

The Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, a women’s shelter that began pilot GPS program in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 2006, has a high success rate: None of the eight men fitted with GPS has violated protective orders while wearing the bracelets.

Barry Bryant, deputy director of the Governor’s Crime Commission in North Carolina, said the police, not the court, mostly determine who wears the surveillance bracelets in North Carolina, a fact that raises civil liberties concerns.

“This should be done by independent judicial officials, not by police officers whose job is to investigate, not to mete out justice,” said Barry Steinhardt, head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology program in Washington. “You want to protect the victims of domestic violence but there has to be a fair process.”

GPS helping U.S. keep track of high-risk offenders

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:48:53 +0000

BOSTON: Electronic surveillance technology is changing the way the authorities in the United States monitor repeat offenders. Its advocates say the new technology can save lives. Its detractors fear a widening breach of civil liberties and an illusory sense of protection.

Part of the appeal is the cost-savings. GPS is a cost-effective alternative to prison, said Paul Lucci, deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Probation Service, pointing to a chart taped to his office wall showing a state-wide surge in use of GPS, mostly to track sex offenders but also for others. “These people probably should be in jail, but the cost of incarceration can be as much as $30,000 or $40,000 a year,” he said. “The GPS costs about $3,400 a year.”

The Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, a women’s shelter that began a pilot GPS program in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 2006, has a high success rate: None of the eight men fitted with GPS has violated protective orders while wearing the bracelets.

Panels Examine GPS Tracking of Domestic Batterers

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:42:18 +0000

Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: News

Several students, judges, and professionals spoke at the law school on Friday, Februaru 29, at the Coalition on Gender Violence’s conference on GPS tracking of domestic batterers. The discussion was centered around a recent piece of Massachusetts legislation that authorized the use of GPS tracking of convicted batterers in order to enforce orders of protection.
HLS lecturer Diane Rosenfeld, who was instrumental in the passage of the Massachusetts legislation, spoke first, telling the audience that she was making this presentation “in the spirit of changing the paradigm on how law and society treat domestic violence.” The traditional paradigm of domestic violence, she said, puts women in particular boxes from which they can exclude their batterer – e.g., their home, their workplace, or a domestic violence shelter – telling them that they are only safe within those boxes; GPS tracking, on the other hand, can exclude batterers from a “zone” that emphasizes women’s right to be protected as they move through society freely.

Rosenfeld shared several examples of domestic violence cases, pointing to three articles on domestic homicide in the previous day’s Boston Globe and discussing at length the case of a woman who was granted a restraining order then killed by her abuser at a women’s shelter. In 2000, she said, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner; 440 men were.

Next, several students discussed their “current development” pieces for the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Review. Alanna Buchanan, ’08, discussed the impact of GPS monitoring of batterers in black communities, noting that black women experience 35% higher rates of domestic violence than white women. In black communities, she noted, women may feel that they are betraying their community by turning men over to a racist system. GPS monitoring could also be used by police to disproportionately and unjustly monitor the activities of black men, not an unjustified fear in light of studies demonstrating a racist bias in the criminal justice system.
Buchanan recommended giving victims the option to seek a traditional restraining order as opposed to GPS monitoring, training a diverse team of law enforcement officers and other social service providers, and addressing domestic violence in a holistic way, providing victims of domestic abuse with help in accessing other social services and benefits.

3L Pamela Foohey spoke about using these GPS tracking systems for sex offenders as an alternative to residency restrictions (currently used by 27 states and numerous towns and countries). GPS systems cannot be used to keep sex offenders away from particular victims, as they can with domestic batterers, but they can be tailored towards keeping sex offenders away from victims fitting their particular profile, such as setting GPS trackers to activate only when the sex offender approaches a defined area around an elementary or middle school. This could avoid the problems inherent in residency restrictions which often force sex offenders into the outskirts of society, something which may actually lead to greater recidivism.

Foohey concluded by noting that convincing states to use GPS tracking in place of residency restrictions in the context of sex offenders – which is an issue that state legislators and other politicians are called upon by their constituencies to address forcefully and expediently – has the potential to to make GPS tracking of batterers a more acceptable means of monitoring violations of restraining orders, where it has many potential benefits (most likely many more than in the sex offender context) because the technology itself will have been tested and better understood, providing states with another justification for its use.

Fred Medick, ’08, discussed whether GPS monitoring could be a violation of offenders’ civil rights and civil liberties, particularly because it may be impposed in lieu of a restraining order on people who have not actually been convicted. He concluded that it was unlikely that a court would conclude that it was a violation of the right to a jury trial, but noted that existing jurisprudence might not be equipped to handle the questions raised by new technology.

A second panel featured Judge Amy Krause of Michigan, Judge Michael Linfield of Los Angeles, Professor Tania Tetlow of Tulane, Austin Lin of NOW, and Kelly Dunne, director of programs at the Jeanne Geiger Center, whose Domestic Violence High Risk Assessment Task Force has been implementing the Massachusetts legislation locally.
Dunne discussed her experiences in implementing the legislation, stating that the system had been predicated on the assumption that the most at-risk cases would enter a shelter and that no other real form of protection had been given. Since the legislation has passed, the High Risk Team has put some 40 offenders on GPS monitoring; none have violated that monitoring.

Judge Linfield questioned whom GPS monitoring is meant to protect – if it is meant to be used in the worst and highest risk cases, perhaps the solution should be prison instead of monitoring, he suggested. He also expressed concerns over establishing a “high tech illusion of safety” that ultimately doesn’t do more to protect women than traditional restraining orders. Similarly, Judge Krauss stated that she felt her local police department already took domestic violence very seriously and that extensive GPS monitoring might be expensive and unnecessary, though she would use it on occasion.

Tetlow defended GPS monitoring as the best current solution because it constitutes slam dunk evidence of a protective order violation, and becomes a clear case of contempt against the court’s order, something that is particularly important as police often do not treat stalking itself as a crime.

Austin Lin of NOW’s National Board stressed that women have a right to live and travel in safety, and that GPS could be a tool to accomplish that. He did express concerns that the cost of GPS monitoring could divert money from other forms of support for domestic violence victims, and stressed that the ideal is a system like Massachusetts has where the offender pays

Former youth pastor sent to prison; given lifetime probation

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:39:51 +0000

By Vanessa Miller (Contact)
Wednesday, May 21, 2008

CORRECTION (5/30/08): In this story, Boulder District Judge D.D. Mallard was misquoted. In referring to Peter Kim, she said, “He was the adult. He was the one who committed the crimes.”

Years after first being arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child, a Longmont youth pastor Wednesday was sentenced to one year in prison and a lifetime of probation.

Peter Kim, 40, bowed his head and kept silent during the sentencing hearing that followed years of court hearings on sex-assault charges, repeated arrests for bond violations and a Boulder County trial that ended in a hung jury.

The former youth pastor who’s accused of “grooming” and sexually assaulting teenage girls must go to prison, register as a sex offender when he’s released, comply with GPS monitoring, stay away from all children and kids younger than 18 — including his three children — and remain under some sort of sexual-offender supervision for the rest of his life.

Kim’s sentence comes after he pleaded guilty in March to having a sexual relationship for three years — between 2001 and 2004 — with a teenage girl he met at Longmont’s Central Presbyterian Church, 402 Kimbark St., where he was serving as a youth pastor.

Although prosecutors asked Boulder County District Court Judge D.D. Mallard to impose a 20-year probation sentence for Kim after prison, Mallard said his extensive criminal history warrants a lifetime of probation.

“You need to be under monitoring for the rest of your life,” Mallard told Kim, “unless you can prove different.”

At the sentencing hearing, the victim from Central Presbyterian addressed the court about how Kim’s advances changed her life. The woman said she’s struggled with depression, anxiety and an eating disorder. Kim’s “manipulation” robbed her of her childhood, she said.

“I was seduced by my youth pastor,” the woman said, choking back tears. “I have lost the ability to love and truly be loved.”

It is the Camera’s policy notto print the names of sex-assault victims during criminal proceedings.

Several alleged victims — including women and their parents — addressed the court about Kim’s criminal behavior and how his actions changed their lives.

One woman, who said she was a victim of Kim’s “grooming” behavior and sexual advances while attending a church youth group in Denver years ago, told the court, “I will no longer be a victim. I will be a survivor.”

In a letter read aloud by prosecutors, a third woman who said she was victimized by Kim while attending a youth group in 1988 urged the court to apply a sentence that will keep him from re-offending.

“If I and the other victims of Kim’s abuse can go on to lead productive lives, it is a testament to our strength and vitality, not to the triviality of Mr. Kim’s actions,” the letter read.

Kim was arrested on the Denver woman’s reports of sexual assault, and he received probation after pleading guilty in that case, according to Colorado court records.

The woman who said she was victimized in 1988 never reported a crime, but she said in her letter that she feels guilty for not stopping Kim from hurting other women.

“I applaud the victims for standing up,” she wrote. “He is a danger to teenage girls and extremely likely to re-offend.”

In addition to multiple charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, Kim repeatedly has been arrested for violating the conditions of his bond by continuing to have contact with children, including his own kids, according to police and court records.

Judge Mallard said that although Kim was arrested in connection with two sexual-assault cases, other allegations have been reported at other churches.

“This history is very aggravating,” she said, adding that she thinks Kim is a high risk to the community and has slim chances of rehabilitation.

To the victims who spoke at the hearing, Mallard said, “It’s not your fault.

“He was the animal,” she said. “He was the one who committed the crimes.”

Bill requiring sex offenders submit to lifetime GPS monitoring passes Senate

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:36:50 +0000

Tuesday, Jul 1 2008, 11:59 pm

Barry Smith

RALEIGH – A bill requiring adults who molest children to submit to lifetime GPS monitoring unanimously cleared the Senate on Tuesday.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. David Hoyle, D-Gaston, also makes it a misdemeanor to tamper with a GPS device. The monitoring requirement would be retroactive and would apply to offenders committing crimes after Aug. 16, 2006.
Hoyle’s bill, which passed 50-0, now goes to the House.
It is designed to supplement the Jessica Lunsford Act, which would require adults who rape children younger than 13 to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison and submit to lifetime GPS monitoring once released from prison.
That bill, versions of which have passed both the House and the Senate, remains in a House Judiciary Committee. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Dan Blue, D-Wake, sent the bill to a subcommittee.
“I think they’re in pretty fruitful conversations,” Blue said.
In addition to the longer prison terms and GPS monitoring, the Jessica Lunsford Act would prohibit people on the sex offender registry from being on the premises of places where children are known to congregate such as schools, playgrounds and children’s museums. They also wouldn’t be allowed to go to an area where regularly scheduled meetings of children take place.
Blue said issues surround that provision, such as allowing parents on the sex offender registry to pick up their children from school or visit polling precincts at schools to vote need to be worked out.
He said that he hoped the subcommittee would be able to have a report ready when the full committee meets again on Thursday.
Asked if he thought the bill would make it out of the General Assembly this year, Blue said, “It should. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t.”
A couple of the bill sponsors, Reps. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Julia Howard, R-Davie, were optimistic that it will become law.
“We’re prayerful,” Howard said.
“We’re prayerfully optimistic,” Moore said.
The proposed law would require 30-year sex-offender registration for people convicted of offenses against a minor or for violent sex offenses. The current law requires a 10-year registration. It would also require registration of offenders moving to the state within three business days. Currently, such offenders have 10 days to register.
The Jessica Lunsford Act is named in memory of Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Gaston County native who after moving to Florida, was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a sexual predator in February 2005. John Couey, a registered sex offender, was convicted and sentenced to die for the crimes.

Police lost track of Couey. He was staying with his sister, who lived in the same neighborhood as Jessica.

Who’s watching the GPS that’s monitoring ex-convicts?

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:28:10 +0000

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Phillip Morris

Plain Dealer Columnist

The woman on the other end of the line spoke ner vously as she explained why I couldn’t print her name or the Cleveland suburb she intends to relocate to next month.

She clearly wanted to talk. She initiated our call. She identified herself. But her anonymity demand was non-negotiable.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“I’m afraid he, or his family, will find us. I’m afraid they’ll come and try to take my son. I’m afraid they’ll try to hurt us.”

Several weeks ago, the 37-year-old woman, a Youngstown resident, said she was attacked by a man she had once dated, a man who fathered her only son. She had not seen him in years.

He had been in prison.

But last month, Mr. “Biological” showed up unannounced on her doorstep and demanded to see their 14-year-old son. She refused and, according to her, was promptly rewarded with nasty name calling.

When that intimidation tactic failed, “Biological” let loose with his hands. Three punches to the face, the woman said. Then her son’s father ran off – again.

It took 21 stitches to repair the cuts in her mouth. Her black eye has just recently returned to normal. She doesn’t know where her ex-beau has slithered off to. She said she heard he had been arrested somewhere in Pennsylvania.

But not before he took the time to call and let her know he intends to get her for calling the police, she said Monday.

She says she was told her attacker had been fitted with an electronic monitoring device by the adult parole authority when he was released from prison. Such a device would have enabled the state to track his movements.

So she wants to know how her attacker ended up on her doorstep – and whether the state is aware of his violent detour.

Global positioning systems that monitor former prisoners are designed to limit their mobility to locations like their workplaces, hospitals or churches. The theory is that the offender, knowing that he’s constantly watched, will not stray.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction couldn’t confirm Monday that Mr. “Biological” had been ordered equipped with a GPS device, however, because the woman could not provide a date of birth for her ex-boyfriend or even the institution where he had served.

His very common name is shared by dozens of current and former Ohio inmates.

Her call does, however, highlight an evolving trend in community-based corrections: the use of tracking satellites.

Six years ago, Ohio started using GPS on selected inmates as a condition of probation. Today, 827 felons are equipped with the devices – 32 percent of them sex offenders.

Taxpayers spend nearly $1.1 million annually to cover the cost of the GPS monitoring, which is a far cheaper alternative to prison. But the devices are only as good as those who monitor them.

There currently are no Ohio studies on the number of people who reoffend while under GPS observation. That’s worth looking into.

A woman in Youngstown claims to have received a busted mouth and a black eye from a man fresh home from prison and on GPS.

Was anyone watching?

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist: pfmorris@plaind.com, 216-999-5086

Stalkers may get wired

peopletrackusa — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:25:17 +0000

Device could warn of nearby restraining-order violator

Saturday, July 05, 2008

BY ART AISNER

The Ann Arbor News

Keeping tabs on accused stalkers and batterers could get a lot more high-tech.

Until now, defendants were prevented only by a judge’s order from contacting their victims.

But if Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs a bill recently approved unanimously by the State Senate, those defendants could wear a GPS monitoring system as a condition of their release.

Designed like an electronic tether, the device would warn authorities – and victims, via their own device – if the defendant comes near.

The measure is being lauded by Washtenaw County’s law enforcement officials and victims’ advocates, although they expressed some concern over the potential cost and logistics.

To qualify for release from jail, defendants would have to agree to pay for trackers that lock onto an ankle while their cases are pending.

The bill also would require them to pay for GPS trackers for victims and the courts so authorities are immediately notified when violations occur. In addition, it prohibits defendants from possessing firearms and visiting areas specified by victims.

The measure was introduced last year after a Mount Pleasant woman was shot to death by her husband outside her workplace, despite pending criminal charges and a court-issued personal protection order.

Supporters of the bills argued that the case highlights vulnerabilities in the system’s approach to protecting survivors of abuse.

“A personal protection order is only as effective as the assailant’s respect for the court, and that’s not usually very high,” said Pittsfield Township Deputy Police Director Elizabeth McGuire. “It’s significant because many domestic attacks on women happen before there’s a judicial outcome, and the violence frequently escalates as the suspect loses control of the situation.”

Similar tracking measures are already allowed for repeat drunken drivers and other offenders. But authorities note that those cases are not largely about control – unlike domestic violence and stalking.

“Control is what’s taken away from victims in these cases, and hopefully this can put them in a position to regain some of that control that they lost from an individual lurking in the shadows,” Ann Arbor Detective Sgt. Richard Kinsey said. “Anything we can do to keep close tabs on these guys will

help.”

Police say a good example of what the law is designed for occurred recently in Ann Arbor.

A man was arrested for following his ex-girlfriend around downtown Ann Arbor on different occasions and is accused of stealing her purse and causing $1,300 damage to her vehicle, police said.

The 20-year-old man had previously been charged with domestic assault and was served with a personal protection order in early May, court records show. He’s now jailed on six felony charges, including aggravated stalking, unarmed robbery and larceny.

Barbara Niess, executive director of SafeHouse Center – a Pittsfield Township-based nonprofit that serves survivors of domestic and sexual assault – said tethers should be considered a valuable tool, but not a replacement for stern punishment.

“What this law will do is give judges more freedom to hold batterers accountable,” she said. “But you can’t put a tether on someone and just expect them to change. It doesn’t keep them from continuing the abuse.”

Niess and others also questioned how the law will be enforced in tough economic times.

The Department of Corrections estimates the daily cost of global positioning monitoring to be $13 – and it could be higher with another service provider.

It’s not yet clear whether the measure could have any financial impact on local municipalities.

Jessica’s Law works

peopletrackusa — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:56:32 +0000

The author of Proposition 83 objects to a Times’ editorial claiming that the sex offender law is unworkable.

By George Runner

It’s been a little more than one year since California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 83, known as “Jessica’s Law,” a measure that strengthens sex offender laws and makes our neighborhoods safer.

As one of the authors of California’s Jessica’s Law, I am confident to say the measure is working well in our legal system — although The Times has said otherwise, all but declaring Jessica’s Law a failure based on the state’s slow execution of two provisions — distancing and GPS monitoring of offenders. While the sluggish approach to put these provisions in place has frustrated me, Jessica’s Law is far from a failed law. In fact, almost every other aspect of the law is fully in place.

California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation can now evaluate incarcerated sex offenders who fit the profile of a sexually violent predator after one felony sex offense has been committed. Prior to the Jessica’s Law, the agency had to wait for a second victim.
District attorneys now have the ability to file new petitions every two years to demonstrate that the offender still poses a danger to society.
Sexually violent predators are now required to serve their full parole in the event they are released from a mental facility.
Sex offenders who lure minors online for sexual purposes, posses child pornography or administer date-rape drugs face increased penalties.
Law enforcement officers are allowed to act as decoys to engage and capture Internet predators.
To date, 2,000 of the 3,000 paroled sex offenders are wearing global positioning satellite ankle bracelets.

A handful of local law enforcement agencies have publicly wondered how GPS monitoring will be funded once the sex offender’s parole has expired and the state hands monitoring duties to communities. I have always said the state should pay for the expense of the tracking system regardless of the agency with the monitoring oversight. A 2008 ballot initiative that I am sponsoring would (among other things) guarantee funding for all GPS ankle bracelets in the state, whether they are worn by sex offenders or gang members.

The GPS systems should cost far less than the $90 million per year reported by a recent Times article. I have encouraged the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to engender competition among bidders and get the best prices and services. I understand the use of GPS is cutting-edge technology for many of California’s law enforcement agencies, but I believe it is time we bring our public safety tools into the 21st century to keep up with California’s growing population and savvy criminals. Monitoring parolees is not akin to monitoring air traffic as some critics have suggested. Instead, GPS allows local law enforcement to obtain daily reports on sex offenders to make sure they are not hanging around places where children gather. GPS is also a deterrence measure and will cut the recidivism rate of sex offenders.

Distancing sex offenders 2,000 feet from schools, parks and other places where children gather is another contemporary idea, and one that California voters have embraced. Parents simply don’t want sex offenders living across the street from schools and parks. Again, a few cities have cried foul, claiming that it is nearly impossible to find housing with the distancing restriction and thus homelessness among sex offenders is sure to occur in abundance. But so far, the claims have been based on guesswork, not actual incidents of homelessness. Densely populated San Francisco County may be the exception. But I have always said if there is a bona fide problem with housing, then I would support revisiting the distancing for that county — maybe adjust the distance to meet San Francisco’s needs.

In the meantime, let’s give Jessica’s Law time to work. In doing so, we will heed the will of the people who believe in this law.

Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) is the chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus and the author of Jessica’s Law. Source of Article