Building Prisons Without Walls Using GPS Devices

Hugh Pickens writes "Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic that increasingly GPS devices are looking like an appealing alternative to conventional incarceration, as it becomes ever clearer that traditional prison has become more or less synonymous with failed prison. 'By almost any metric, our practice of locking large numbers of people behind bars has proved at best ineffective and at worst a national disgrace,' writes Wood. But new devices such as ExacuTrack suggest a revolutionary possibility: that we might do away with the current, expensive array of guards and cells and fences, in favor of a regimen of close, constant surveillance on the outside and swift, certain punishment for any deviations from an established, legally unobjectionable routine. 'The potential upside is enormous. Not only might such a system save billions of dollars annually, it could theoretically produce far better outcomes, training convicts to become law-abiders rather than more-ruthless lawbreakers,' adds Wood. 'The ultimate result could be lower crime rates, at a reduced cost, and with considerably less inhumanity in the bargain.'"

Comments

Already used in the UK

[Chrisq]

But the bad news is that it has no basic impact on crime, on re-offending, with many criminals comitting crimes while tagged.

Re:Already used in the UK

[value_added]

Apparently, neither does incarceration. ;-)

In the US, particularly here in California, the prison industry and unions have a disproportionate influence on the workings of the criminal justice system.

The way I see it, the only way a GPS-based system would be implemented as anything but a pilot program would if there were huge amounts of money to be made. If saving money was the issue, we could reduce crime, costs, and prison populations starting tomorrow simply by writing each offenders a monthly check for a portion of their incarceration cost. Last I heard, that would give each evil do-er a comfortable middle class existence.

Re:Already used in the UK

[shentino]

Only as long as convicts aren't forced to sign a waiver stating they won't sue if the device malfunctions and zaps them by accident.

Re:Already used in the UK

[Jaysyn]

Let the liberal, hippies castrate this until it won't "scar" the delicate souls of the inmates, limiting it to such a stupidity and rendering it completely incompetent -

Actually, you are much more likely to run into opposition from the prison-industrial complex, & they ain't liberal, but let's not let facts or common sense get in the way of a good rant.

Re:Already used in the UK

[DJRumpy]

Arguably, given the article you posted, it doesn't appear to be effective in the way it was presented, but I found a few points interesting.

This person gives no references for the statement claiming 'it doesn't work', nor does he compare it to the current incarceration method statistics and he doesn't present any statistics from typical prison based incarceration. He of course only speaks to and ask about the worst case scenarios (those that managed to get out of their collars, those that these private companies failed to monitor, or those that didn't get them in the first place), which of course gives him worse statistics than expected.

Last point that I noticed, the article said the companies could not supply him with any studies indicating that tagging was effective. The point being that they simply don't know if it's effective as no studies have been done to date, or they aren't aware of any. You interpreted that as "it doesn't work".

But the bad news is that it has no basic impact on crime, on re-offending [bbc.co.uk], with many criminals comitting crimes while tagged.

Re:Already used in the UK

[bytesex]

The device would have to unremovable (which requires sensitive anti-tamper cabling through it, with power on those cables), it would have to be able to do real time crypto (both for transmitting data, and for being able to answer to challenges, otherwise its messages could be replayed by a ground-based antenna while you wrap the original device in metal), it would have to be able to transmit over a fair distance, and perhaps through walls, and it would have to be able to 'sting' - presumably using electricity, and it would require a portable power-source to do all this.

And then you haven't dealt with the risk of 'no reception', or answered the question of 'where are we going to do location - by triangulation or GPS inside the device ?'.

I can tell you now, from experience, using current-day technology - that's not going to be a very 'portable' device.

Re:Already used in the UK

[Woefdram]

Prisons may not be perfect, but they are the best solution we have yet come up with.

Yup, "yet". But maybe this is the time where we actually do come up with something better. It doesn't make sense to slap a bracelet on a mentally deranged serial killer, tell him "watch it, cause we're watching you" and send him back onto the street. But doing the same with a shoplifter might actually be better than putting him behind bars for a while, having him loose contact with the real world. He may not be able to to any harm while in prison, but when he gets out, chances are he's not thinking "wow, that really taught me something. I'll never do it again."

To quote George Jung in Blow:

"Danbury wasn't a prison, it was a crime school. I got in with a Bachelor of marihuana, I got out with a Doctorate in cocaine."

Re:Already used in the UK

[harrytuttle777]

I talked to one of those criminals that was in the work release program. He said that a large portion of his salary was being given to the prison system. I do not know exactly what portion, but was led to believe that it was more then half. Isn't this heading toward a system of slave labor.

I can understand the point of paying for your sins. However if the system is set up so that it is being fed by those sins will naturally accumulate w/o regard to reality. Cops generally acknowledge that if they pull you over, they 'CAN' find some moving infraction that you are in violation of.

Just think that a large percentage of the population in the U.S depends upon people sinning. Judges, lawyers, cops, prison officials, etc. When you throw money and privatized prisons into the mix, bad things happen. In some ways the criminal system is the best thing going for drug dealers. Without it they would not be making the insane cash they are. So the drug dealers and the enforces prop each other up.

Why is it that society feels comfortable with spending great gobs of money on enforcement, but hardly any on treatment. President Nixon was the only president to have spent more money on treatment then incarceration.

For the truly horrendous crimes there should be a summary execution. If society can't stomach that, they have not business being in the prison business.

Games without frontiers

[Wowsers]

Why go to all that effort of targeting criminals? You could do like what the UK has done, install CCTV EVERYWHERE and make the entire country a virtual prison.

Speaking from my experience, it feels nice to get out of the UK on holiday. However, due to the number of cameras and them being everywhere everywhere, the UK really does feel like one large open prison when you return. So much for being a free country.

Re:Only killing works

[c]

> It is a sad fact that the ONLY rehabilitation that works
> on criminals is a bullet through the brain. Not a single
> other system has any noticable effect.

Well, not entirely true. Getting people out of the environments that lead them towards a criminal lifestyle tends to be pretty effective (aside from the seriously mentally ill, of course).

Prison, unfortunately, is the exact opposite of doing that.

A bullet through the brain, on the other hand, gets points for a cheap and effective after-the-fact approach.