Satellites keep track of offenders

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Parole officer Bob McCullough likes what he sees on his laptop screen: a green dot motionless on a computer map of the city.

The dot is not trying to harm its ex-girlfriend, or escape across state lines.

It is, McCullough observes, behaving itself.

That green dot is a 54-year-old contractor who in January allegedly dragged the woman he was dating into his cellar, repeatedly punched her in the face, loaded a rifle, and threatened to shoot her and her son.

Now he’s out on bail. At one time, her only protection until his trial in the fall would have been a paper-thin restraining order, one of 40,000 issued each year in Pennsylvania.

Instead, his ex-girlfriend has a fleet of 24 satellites. Orbiting 12,000 miles up, they track his movements, block by block, minute by minute, via a tiny box of electronics and an ankle bracelet. His whereabouts show up almost instantaneously on a Web site map. If he comes within 1.3 miles of her home, a computer pages authorities.

Begun in the late 1970s by the U.S. Department of Defense, the $12 billion satellite network known as the Global Positioning System (GPS) commonly is used by pilots, sailors and hunters to pinpoint their locations.

Now, for as many as 2,000 offenders nationwide, GPS is turning the outside world into a virtual jail, in which they are under outer-space guard 24-7. Since 1998, when the technology for such monitoring rolled out of the lab, corrections departments in 28 states have adopted it, typically for sex offenders and domestic abusers out on bail, probation or parole.

The fledgling technology is still prone to glitches. Yet experts predict that within two decades hundreds of thousands of offenders of all stripes will be followed from on high.

In Florida — the nation’s leading user of GPS — corrections officials see their 600-unit program expanding to include all of the state’s 150,000 felony probationers. Richard Nimer, the department’s program director, said criminals are less likely to re-offend “because they know they’re being watched” — although just three weeks ago, a man ditched his tracking box at a Hardee’s and, still in his anklet, robbed the bank next door.

“Boom!” Nimer said. “We had him tracked.”

The GPS system is light-years ahead of even the electronic-monitoring anklets now used for house arrest, in which radio waves tell a box in the offender’s home whether he is there during curfew hours.

GPS, by contrast, doesn’t stop at the front door.

In the most common system, built by Pro Tech Monitoring of Odessa, Fla., the offender carries a three-pound tracking box about the size of a child’s lunch box. At any given moment, it is receiving signals from at least three of the 24 Navstar satellites; by triangulation, the box constantly calculates its latitude and longitude.

An anklet of rubber and metal ensures that box and offender stay together, triggering an alarm if they are separated by more than 100 feet.

An internal cell phone allows the box to relay its location to Pro Tech computers, which display the data on real-time maps at the firm’s Web site. The system is so precise that McCullough can see that an offender is traveling 67 mph on Interstate 80.

Red boxes on the map denote restricted “hot zones” around the victim’s workplace or home, or, in the case of pedophiles, school yards and playgrounds. If the offender violates a hot zone or tampers with the box or the bracelet, a Pro Tech computer pages probation agents; in some states, victims can receive simultaneous pager alerts.

That is not say it is free of serious problems.

The green dot identified by probation officers only as “John” is eager to cooperate with a system that keeps him out of jail, and working. “If I were sitting in jail, my business and life would be shut right off,” he said. “And I’d probably lose my mind.”

Yet he often finds himself squinting up at unseen satellites, wondering why his GPS unit is telling police he has tried to escape when he hasn’t.

Twice, it mistakenly reported that John had cut off his anklet. Recently as he was taking a 20-minute drive to meet McCullough, chief of adult probation for Lycoming County, the box lost satellite contact twice, forcing John to pull his truck onto the shoulder and hold the box out the window.

“It just beeps and beeps and beeps,” John said of the box.

Pro Tech chief operating officer Rob Posavec said system breakdowns were rare, but inevitable. The GPS signal can be blocked by buildings or mountains; cell phone and pager networks might not even exist in remote areas.

In January, Pro Tech plans to introduce two next-generation versions, shrunk to the size of a pager. One will do “active,” real-time tracking, Posavec said, for the “worst of the worst” needing constant surveillance.

But Posavec sees a much wider market for a “passive” GPS system, which simply keeps a log of the wearer’s movements. That information is downloaded to police computers when the offender puts the unit into a battery charger in his home each day.

Costing less than $5 daily, passive GPS could eventually monitor millions of offenders, even small-time burglars and juvenile vandals, he said.

It could not, however, alert police if John drove across Williamsport to his ex-girlfriend’s house. Still, knowing that police would have a complete record of his movements could be deterrent enough, Posavec said.

“That log is the smoking gun,” he said. “It’s going to be pretty tough evidence to overcome in court.”

It could not, however, alert police if John drove across Williamsport to his ex-girlfriend’s house. Still, knowing that police would have a complete record of his movements could be deterrent enough, Posavec said.

well, that should make her feel secure. thank G-d it isn’t as
paper thin as a restraining order. of course, law enforcement
isn’t required to protect you, but they are required to fill out
paperwork when they find your body. ain’t technology grand?

--I thought of this some years ago and unfortunately failed to follow up on it. I also envisioned a refinement roughly based on a scene in one of "Ahhnald's" movies whereby for certain categories of offender a neckband or similar device would tighten around the wearers' anatomy if they violated the restrictions--in the movie it blew the violators head off.

It's for our own protection! At $5.00 a pop we can "monitor" anybody..that careless person who neglected to buckle up last week, that suspected nutcase who insists on keeping a (gasp) gun in his possession. At last, a method to keep track of the less desireable element, the scum that make every one else's life so unsure and frought with surprises.

Why, pretty soon, as soon as we know who all of them is, we can house them in security zones and separate them from the right thinking folks who just want order and safety. It will be wonderful

< /sarcasm>

I saw that movie the other nite, with Rutger Hauer and Mimi Rodgers. It was quite good. Think it was called Deadlock or something like that. You were paired up with someone else who you didn't know was your partner. If you moved more than 100 yards apart from each other, you lost your head. There were no guards in the prison and if you were really bad they locked you in a dark water tank for a few days.

This could be used on the drugoids - release them from prison, let them pay off an appropriate fine by working, and track them to keep them away from drug neighborhoods. You could also equip the anklets with a trank gun - if GM OnStar can unlock a car from space, it could stick a recidivist drugoid...

That is exactly the kind of abuse of technology that worries me. I hope you were being tongue in cheek because it is a very short step to go from controlling the movements of, and sedating, drugoids, as you call them, to doing the same to political dissenters.

"Now he’s out on bail. At one time, her only protection until his trial in the fall would have been a paper-thin restraining order, one of 40,000 issued each year in Pennsylvania."

Doesn't everyone feel safe that this nutcase is out on bail?

Agree or not, it is fact that many judges grant bail to the people accused of crimes who later commit another crime while on bail. It is a judgement call and judges suffer from the same failures of judgement as the rest of mankind. Truthfully, part of me wants to say that 24/7 monitoring by a sensor is useful for locating the whereabouts of these alleged felons but another part of me says that we will tend to rely on technology to the detriment of protecting society at large from these predators. I think we are playing with fire.

It's for our own protection! At $5.00

No that's $5 a day or $1825 a year. That has to be mostly for the "service" of keeping tabs, and the security aspects of the unit.
Wrist watch GPS units are available now for about 300 bucks.

Costing less than $5 daily, passive GPS could eventually monitor millions of offenders, even small-time burglars and juvenile vandals, he said.

Aw hell, let's just pass a law and put them on EVERYBODY!

After all, if it stops just ONE violent felony, it will be worth it!

For the children, the childlike, and childish: if not adequately implanted, any GPS unit could be cut off - or its impeding limb, so dumping Chandra, er uh, the victim and perp would be without location signals. I can imagine the bazilliabytes of memory required by NSA to store 285 million citizens, legal residents, and wet feets "whereats" for a week, much less a month. You'd still need a Sherlock Holmes.

It's telemetery, my dear Watson.

Again were governed by 6 year olds said to want to protect all 6 year olds so at some point we can all "act" like , yeah you guessed it...........6 year olds.

I'm gonna go bust into a bottle of 6 year old scotch and think this over :o).

Stay Safe.....

and track them to keep them away from drug neighborhoods.

Won't work.
Any 'drugoid' worth that moniker would know a good delivery service.

I'm gonna go bust into a bottle of 6 year old scotch and think this over :o).

You really should wait until the scotch is at least a pre-teen (12 yrs old) or an adult (24 yrs old). trust me I know about these things.:^)

Stay well - Yorktown

Why yes, it's for the children. And remember:
War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength and Freedom is Slavery.

That little piece of hardware will become your friend, your protector. Big brother is watching you! Be happy.

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