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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."
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.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. " -Voltaire
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.
Living With a Nerd
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...."
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Weeeee. Let's play surprise suicide bomber!
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.
California prisons are overfull and underfunded, they are operating at somewhere near twice capacity. They don't have enough guards and on a lot of the prisons the guard towers around the perimeter are empty: you could just drive a truck through the fence, pick someone up and leave before anyone realized what was happening. If you are a non-violent criminal, you will probably only need to serve half or even a quarter of your sentence before being released. In addition, the prison systems are an inefficient bureaucracy. They send prisoners to different places to get check-ups that could be easily done in one place, things like that. All this information I got from my uncle who is a prison administrator, so take it for what it's worth.
If you are wondering why the prisons in California are so full, it's because a few years ago we passed a "three strikes you're out" law, which means repeat offenders get life imprisonment. So they are trying creative stuff like this. Guess it's not working.
Qxe4
The RIAA needs an incentive, so give the bracelets wireless internet and have them download music whenever the perolee goes somewhere restricted. He won't know what hit him.
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?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
So if a crime is committed somewhere, it will be relatively easy to check whether any of the paroled felons were in the vicinity when it happened.
So, deterrence factor against committing further crimes will still exist.
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)?
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
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.
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?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
A larger source of the problem was starting in the 80s (Reagan) and again in the 90s (Clinton) import tariffs were dropped to almost nothing in the US with the expectation that we'd make it all back in IP jobs and money: entertainment, software and biotech.
We learned that many countries were quite happy to sell to the US with the reduced tariffs in place, but didn't drop their own, and didn't necessarily give diddly-squat about our IP and its rules.
Tariffs are quite high on sugar and textiles, but for electronics and heavy industry, it's almost non-existent.
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
A union allows workers to bargain with employers collectively. Corporations act collectively (RIAA, MPAA, other industry associations), why shouldn't workers?
The reason Chinese workers are cheaper than American workers is because the cost of living is cheaper there. When I was in Thailand in the USAF in 1974 you could take a bus anywhere in the country for a nickle, buy a tailored silk shirt for $10, feed four people in a restaraunt for a dollar. I paid thirty dollars a month to rent my bungalow (when I got back, for comparison, I paid $160 a month for a shotgun house in the slums and a McDonalds "meal" cost two bucks for one person). Now tell me how you can possibly compete with that?
And here's a little tip: most union workers don't earn $150k/yr. I have a friend who's worked for the postal service for thirty years fixing those big mail boxes, he makes $75k. Were it not for his union he'd probably be making little more than minimum wage.
Unless you're a corporatist or business owner, you're dead wrong about unions. Any working person who is anti-union is stupid, ignorant, or crazy.
Free Martian Whores!