California Tracks Parolees With GPS, Then Ignores Alerts

An anonymous reader writes "Several years ago, California decided to require high-risk parolees, such as gang members and sex offenders, to wear GPS monitoring devices. The idea was to relay location information to law enforcement to ensure that the convicts stay where they're supposed to. Unfortunately, the state often misses acting on those alerts, making the devices both a lesson in the pitfalls of technology management and a massive exercise in largely useless spending."

Comments

Won't somebody think of the children!

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

Really, I'd like to know who was in charge of the system, that way I can never hire the guy.

or at least I'd like to know WHY nobody acted on it, maybe he had no budget to do anything?

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Shakrai]

and have already too many bigger problems they don't have time to investigate.

Convicted violent felons violating the terms of their parole don't represent a sufficiently big enough problem to investigate? Hell, there wouldn't even be a long drawn out investigation. *keystrokes*, "Hmm, looks like he is at Sams Club, send a radio car to that location...."

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[commodore64_love]

What are you talking about? The system worked perfectly:

- the leaders spent a lot of money
- they bragged about it in their monthly newsletters
- the voters FELT safe and happy

This system worked just as planned by the politicians. They made Californians feel safe and happy and warm inside. Bread and circuses.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

I then assume the system was put in place for political reasons, some company that makes the stuff likely convinced some politician that the system was bullet proof, and sold him overnight.

I then assume that the body required to implement this project then likely said: "Sure, we can do that, but we need more money."

on being denied that money, I would have expected them to take this to the press. get some public attention to look at the matter, see why the government is proposing solutions that there's no money for.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[TheWanderingHermit]

Hey, they don't have time for that.

But notice that they know every time Lindsy Lohan has had a drink and it shows up on her device...

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[mapkinase]

I share your emotional reaction to this budget exercise a lot. A lot.

But. I think that there still might be some positive outcome from this: at least in the beginning parolees had a feeling that they are being watched and that feeling may be prevented them from committing more crime than they would have committed without GPS devices. This is just a hypothesis which quite hard to check: crime statistics dynamics depends on many factors and it is impossible to separate the influence of just one of them.

Of course now that they know (or at least those of them who are avid readers of signonsandiego or slashdot) that nobody cares about their latitudes and longitudes, this factor is probably gone.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, I'd like to know who was in charge of the system, that way I can never hire the guy. or at least I'd like to know WHY nobody acted on it, maybe he had no budget to do anything?

Probably the are underfunded and have already too many bigger problems they don't have time to investigate.

Yeah, they're too busy arresting and fining people for nonviolent drug offenses to be bothered with such trivial things like gang members and sex offenders.

Seriously. End the war on drugs. Now. Then be amazed at the vast law enforcement resources that become available to prosecute crimes that cannot be described as "victimless". We sure do hate common sense in this country.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Skuld-Chan]

I'd suggest it has nothing to do with government workers. Its like that fancy system monitoring software you got for your IT department. Shows all kinds of alarms and alerts - they they cut your entire department. Are you going to spend your day acting on alarms, or answering help desk emails? If your time is split between all that - stuff is going to slip by the wayside.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Bakkster]

Convicted violent felons violating the terms of their parole don't represent a sufficiently big enough problem to investigate? Hell, there wouldn't even be a long drawn out investigation. *keystrokes*, "Hmm, looks like he is at Sams Club, send a radio car to that location...."

This is California. You think they have gas money for their patrol cars to get them to the parole violator's location? Let alone the money for additional cops who aren't making money for the state (such as speeding tickets or issuing other fines)?

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Paracelcus]

One of the biggest problems in that the law does not differentiate between the Pedo that rapes a little kid and an 18 year old who bones his 16 year old girlfriend or the 70 year old weenie wagger.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[DaveV1.0]

Your uncle is part of the problem. The prisons are not underfunded. The prisons are waste too much money.

Remember, it costs California $47,000 per-inmate annually, which is 50 percent higher than the national average. There are approximately 170,000 people in California prisons. That works out to almost 10% of the budget. If the cost were more in line with the rest of the nation, it would save over $2 billion.

Ask your uncle why it costs a third more to house an inmate in California. I guarantee you he won't say it is because he is overpaid, but that is the case.

I support three-strikes laws. If one is going to be an habitual repeat offender, I see no need to let one out.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[Locke2005]

Actually, it was put in place for economic reasons. These bracelets are a lot cheaper than keeping these people in jail, where dangerous people SHOULD be kept. If someone really, really wants to rape and kill kids, will knowing he was in the vicinity after the fact really bring back the victims? This outcry was triggered by a monitored parolee committing murder. One has to ask, if they had followed up on every alarm, would that really have prevented the murders? The only way to make sure these people don't re-offend is to keep their asses in jail. A bracelet is just like a restraining order; if someone is willing to break the law, it does nothing to stop them. It only alerts people slightly earlier that they are doing something wrong.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children!

[causality]

The victims are not your friends, your family, and hopefully, not you.

The crux of the matter is the assumption that all use is damaging abuse.

For the sake of argument, assume that you mentioned drinking some beers last weekend. Unless you give a solid reason to believe otherwise, the assumption is that you used alcohol responsibly, you didn't drive drunk, you didn't beat your wife, you didn't get fired for being drunk on the job, etc. You had some beer, stayed home, watched a movie or something, and went to bed.

Because of that, if I said that it would be wrong to put you in prison merely for possessing and using alcohol, you wouldn't immediately portray your friends and family members as victims. You wouldn't immediately assume that anyone who drinks alcohol or believes that adults should be allowed to drink alcohol is a hardcore alcoholic. You'd see why it's unreasonable to assume that all people who use alcohol are alcoholics, that is, alcohol addicts who victimize themselves and those who care about them. You might see why that assumption is a baseless emotional appeal that should never determine public policy.

You might wonder how anyone could, with a straight face, make a serious crime out of watching a movie and drinking a beer. You might wonder that while understanding it's perfectly reasonable to make a serious crime out of driving drunk, since such irresponsible use does endanger others. It's reasonable because the moment others are harmed in some way, such as being endangered, then and only then does it become a crime. Then and only then does the state have a legitimate reason to use police power. Anything else is tyranny.

So why do we recreate the exact circumstances of Prohibition for substances other than alcohol, after having observed that Prohibition stopped no one from drinking, served only to fund organized crime, and was a complete failure? Why do we do that knowing that no one fought with automatic firearms in the streets over alcohol until it was made illegal? Why do we continue to make an assumption that adults cannot be expected to use something responsibily when we already expect them to do that for one of the more harmful drugs known to society?

You see, it doesn't make sense. The anti-drug commercials you're parroting there can sound very convincing until you really question the whole thing as a system. Only politicians benefit from this because of the expansion of police power that it excuses.

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
-- P. J. O'Rourke

I disagree

[Midnight's Shadow]

I have to disagree with the summery because I don't see it as

both a lesson in the pitfalls of technology management and a massive exercise in largely useless spending.

It served the purpose of making the voters think something was being done which is all that is important in US politics.

-1 Flamebait on the summary

[Pojut]

It's not useless spending, they just aren't utilizing it properly. The idea is a good one, but just like regulations, it's only useless if it isn't properly enforced.

Need moar expensive, custom software!

[newdsfornerds]

"Officials say the backlog grew because they lacked software to run an ongoing report of all unresolved cases." Prolly all they need is a sql script. But whatever.

Problem lies between monitor and chair

[Saishuuheiki]

I read the article and come to a different conclusion. I believe the problem isn't in the technology, because from what I read it mostly worked. It mentioned some false alarms, but nobody hurts because of a false alarm. The problem here lies in the ineptitude of the people using the system.

Let's say we developed a system that detected earthquakes 1 minute before they went off, but 90% of the time it would be a false alarm. Then people proceed to ignore the alarm because it's usually wrong. Now when a real earthquake occurs, those who ignore the alarm blame it on bad technology.

I say no, this is the fault of the reaction, not the technology itself.

Re:Problem lies between monitor and chair

[Zak3056]

Let's say we developed a system that detected earthquakes 1 minute before they went off, but 90% of the time it would be a false alarm. Then people proceed to ignore the alarm because it's usually wrong. Now when a real earthquake occurs, those who ignore the alarm blame it on bad technology.

I say no, this is the fault of the reaction, not the technology itself.

A broken clock is right twice a day, so there is no need to repair it?

High Risk Parolees?

[camperdave]

High-risk parolees? A parolee is someone who has given their word (parole) that they will behave themselves and check in regularly in exchange for the privilege of spending some time outside of the prison walls. If you have to slap a GPS tracking unit on them then you don't trust their word. If so, then why are you giving them parole in the first place?

Re:High Risk Parolees?

[Wrath0fb0b]

You offer the guy a deal for parole when he first gets in the system. Seems like an easy logical choice right? Then when he violates it (an incredibly common affair), you get to shove him in jail for the parole violation with no trial, no plea, no nothing. IANAL, but this is what a practicing lawyer in CA has told me. It's more than slightly ridiculous, but that's what happens when you're hamstrung by a retarded 3 strikes law among other things.

(1) The guy doesn't have to take parole if he doesn't want to. Parole is voluntary.

(2) You would think that he could abide the terms of parole given that the State could lawfully be holding him in jail. What is the thought process: "They are letting me out of my passed sentence on the condition that I don't drink and drive but I think I'll pound a few beers and drive home anyway"?

(3) 3 strikes is retarded in implementation but not in concept. People thrice convicted of bona-fide violent crimes (assault, robbery, rape) should get 25-life. People thrice convicted of shoplifting should get a weekend in jail and a vocational class. The idea that we cannot distinguish between those obviously different crimes is absurd.

Hence people like me are in the ridiculous position of having to defend the concept of 3S while concurrently explaining that shoplifting and other minor crimes were never part of our plan. People that repeatedly violate the fundamental human rights of others (to wit, the rights not to be robbed, raped or beaten) need to be imprisoned.

dear unions:

[circletimessquare]

at one time, when gilded age corporatist assholes employed pinkerton's thugs to kneecap guys just trying to earn enough to feed his children, unions were heroic and noble

in today's day and age, a union is nothing more than a lottery ticket for lazy assholes to earn way way more than middle class salaries, for doing far less, and be accountable and responsible for nothing

additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in chinese sweatshops. a committed anti-corporatist would respond it is the corporatists who drive jobs out of the country, not the unions. to which i would respond that that is easy to say, until you actually have to buy the goods with the sticker shock attached to them just so a union member can have lavish benefits and upper middle class salaries well beyond yours

the unions help drive jobs out of the country by demanding far too much for workers. the irony being, in china, people are now unionizing, get this, against the communist government's wishes (that extra twist of historical irony practically makes my head explode)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/global/11strike.html

is it possible in this world to have the balance of power between the unions and the corportatists simply give workers a decent wage and keep jobs domestic and keep goods and services affordable?

and can GOVERNMENT unions simply be mandated out of existence, please?

Re:dear unions:

[infinite9]

additionally, no one can afford to manufacture anything here anymore because of union mandated salary levels, so everything is now done in chinese sweatshops. a committed anti-corporatist would respond it is the corporatists who drive jobs out of the country, not the unions. to which i would respond that that is easy to say, until you actually have to buy the goods with the sticker shock attached to them just so a union member can have lavish benefits and upper middle class salaries well beyond yours

You're repeating the standard conservative (I hesitate to say republican these days) ideology. And it's not without merit. But I think everyone has it backwards. I don't think union workers are over-paid. I think the rest of us are under-paid. When a government official says that inflation is low and that it's a good thing, they mean wage inflation. Wages have been stagnant here for more than a decade. Maybe, just maybe, the unions have it right. The difference is that they have had the power to prevent the wage stagnation for their members that the rest of us have been powerless to stop. And for that I blame the corporatists. So when you look at the cost of something made in america and feel sticker shock, maybe it's because you're not making enough, and the value of the dollar has been eroded.

You feel like you're making more than your parents and grand-parents did, because the absolute number is higher. But in terms of purchasing power, you're making much less. Those union workers we like to complain about are actually living the way our grandparents did. This is the real reason for your sticker shock. Do they deserve to live like us? Or do we deserve to live like them?

Re:Badly managed, yes. But...

[AndersOSU]

These are parolees, you don't need probable cause. All you have to do is show up whenever there's an alert. If you can't show up whenever there's an alert you need to reassess your priorities.

They screwed themselves by publicizing this

[Locke2005]

The bracelets are there as a deterrent. As long as the parolee's believe every little alarm will be followed up with serious consequences, then the system works fine. Once they figure out that they can set the alarms off with no consequences (e.g. by reading articles like this one) then the system becomes an exercise in futility. Then you have to actually follow up on every notification, despite the fact that 99% of them are false positives.

well yeah

[circletimessquare]

it would be great if we all made $150K a year. now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible

thought so

all you have is wish fulfillment fantasy, not valid social commentary

i actually consider myself quite liberal and have voted Democratic all my life. but when it comes to unions, i see only a bloated historical anachronism that does more harm than good

150k FOR EVERYONE!!?

[denzacar]

ALL unionized workers get paid that much? Really?

Oh... wait... you were generalizing and putting up a straw man, I get it.

now enunciate the real world plan in which that is possible

You mean a world where everyone makes unionized workers' salaries, benefits and protection and not the actual straw man 150k you mention above?
Easy.

The same one where CEOs DON'T get rewarded by 6 and 7-figure salaries and bonuses regardless if they bring the economy to its knees.
Also... The same one where both CEOs and workers consider a sum like 150k a year "a shitload of money".