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Program Uses GPS To Track Sex Offenders
43 sex offenders in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County are wearing GPS monitoring devices as part of a pilot program designed to keep track of their movements. If the offender moves into an "exclusion zone," police are called. “Exclusion zones for example [are] schools, daycares, playgrounds, facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders,” John Hudson, a security consultant, said. “We’ve identified in their red zones. If an offender with a device goes into one of the red zones, an exclusion zone, we’ll be notified immediately.”
I understand the need to protect the kids. But what about you pay for your previous mistakes and then you can continue with your life if you learned ? So not only this person goes to jail, but he has to pay for the same mistake all of his life ? Where is the justice in that ?
The modern Scarlett Letter. What a sick, sad joke.
Why don't we just brand their heads with something like 'Molester' or the like, it would be far easier on everyone involved.
Children would know to watch out for them.
Adults would know if there happens to be a molester watching the kids in the playground.
Its more visible than a red M.
Probably would be easier on the offender since its a safe bet there are daycares, schools and tons of other 'red zones' scattered all over any urban area that you'd be very hard pressed to avoid without constantly referencing a map or just staying at home.
Hell, just keep them in jail, that really is probably the easiest solution on everyone including the criminals.
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is No Molesting. The White Zone is...
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
I don't really understand why people like this aren't kept in prison. If they have a high chance of committing another crime, enough so this device is warranted, why would you not keep them in prison to protect people? Why not just give every criminal something like this and completely get rid of prison. If you are a violent offender and your blood pressure goes up along with your adrenaline, the cops are called. If you are a thief and you go to the store, a cop is called. It just seems ridiculous that they spend more time and money locking up nonviolent offenders when the only thing our prison system in the US is good at is isolating people from society.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
I hate to sound like I'm defending them but what about when they're driving? I always end up stuck in traffic at school zones if I don't pay attention to the time.
It's not really. But it is a fairly suitable method for making people to feel like they're safe.
I will preemptively agree with what I assume will be an outburst at the absurdity of this, but I'll also add that this is really kind of an advancement on the technology already used to put people under house arrest. That being said, it's a very dangerous slope from being sentenced to house arrest and having your whereabouts monitored, and imagine keeping miss Lohan away from out of all bars and liquor stores? Okay, that actually sounds like a good idea, so how about any restaurant with a liquor license? I think the inanity is best exemplified by this quote:
“Because the psychology of the crime of the criminal actually is, they will re-offend and so we’re looking at persons who are recidivists,” Zappala said.
Lack of grammar aside, that's a dangerous thought, and of course patently wrong. Besides, if you are of the twisted mindset that someone will always re-offend, then you should keep them locked up and not in public anyway.
Finally, it alerts the tagged individual. If indeed it does, I hope it does so a tad of discretion. "Hey, pedo, get away from this school. Sicko." doesn't make for good sidewalk conversation.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
How about just closing down the centers for the molesters full of children? Wouldn't that be easier than GPS tracking?
Who thought facilities to supply sex offenders with victims was a good idea in the first place?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
While 1000ft exclusion zones around schools, parks, playgrounds, daycares etc sound like a reasonable idea to most people I've always wondered how difficult it must be to actually go places and obey them.
There are so many schools, etc in most populated areas how is someone supposed to get from one side of town to the next without coming within 1000ft of a schools property? Do they distribute maps? Obeying something like this would require so much effort that I doubt anyone who actually attempted it would be successful.
The local news here once ran a story that 90% of sex offenders live within 1000ft of a bus stop. Makes a great sensationalist story, but I would bet that 90% of all people live close to a bus stop.
Obviously some sex offenders need to be kept away from children, but other than forcing them to live in the middle of nowhere I don't see an easy solution.
And these aren't the only people exclusion zones are applied to, they are also used against people carrying drugs or guns, of course most people completely ignore this unless they are unfortunate enough to get stopped in front of an elementary school with a little marijuana.
If a person is going to have to pay for the rest of their lives with such limitations on their freedom, then why not simply execute them and be done with it? Certainly it would have to be loads cheaper than maintaining the infrastructure to manage something like this. Not that I'm saying I'm a proponent of capital punishment in general, but I really don't see the point in continuing to live among other people if one is going to be forever prohibited from functioning as a normal member of society.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> If the offender moves into an "exclusion zone,"
What, like, the mall?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
they should just release the gps data to the public so WE can 'keep an eye' on them
Because you're not a law enforcement officer, and when the individual is paroled and reintegrated back to society they deserve just as much privacy protection as you and I.
When you put "'keep an eye' on them" in quotes like that it very strongly implies that you will 'take matters into your own hands' and 'make sure they don't hurt anyone again'. Modern America is no place for paranoid vigilante mob justice.
... i have 2 kids and yes, i should know who they are and if they are preying on my children.
Not all sex offenders predate on children. Some of them are on that list for no other reason than they got drunk and took a leak in a playground. The list is fundamentally broken. In large part because people fail to see sex offenders as being capable of rehabilitation, and feel like they need to 'keep an eye' on them. We have a justice system that includes rehabilitation and parole. If you think people are being released that are a continued threat to your children, your problem is just as much with the parole board as it is with the individual.
Well Hester Prynne's village would be proud. I am glad that they mark the exclusion zones red on the maps. They have got the Scarlet part of the stigma correct, but they are missing the letter. Let's just carve 'SO' into their foreheads so everyone can be safe from these dastardly outcasts of society....
By the way, just so I don't repeat Orwell's mistake, this comment is not an instruction manual.
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It appears you are entirely correct. I had always heard that high recidivism was the reason we treated sex offenders differently. Turns out that sex offenders have a lower recidivism rate than any other class of crime except murder. So why do we treat them differently?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_offender#Recidivism_rates
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's just like the TSA and the new X-ray back scatter devices. There is a lot of money to be had by providing technology and services that grant the illusion of safety, but don't actually deliver on their promise.
Can't you be classified as a sex offender in the US for things as heinous as taking a slash or having sex in a public place? Something along the lines of a sexual offence being anything that's offensive and involves genitals, rather than committing a violent sexual crime (which is most people's definition of a sex offender).
TFA was light on any details, other than this being used on 43 out of 1100 people, but even if it's just for paedophiles I can't see them being able to step out of the house, since surely there are hundreds of places where children will congregate outside of schools...?
Of course, once it's used to track paedophiles I figure you can start issuing automatic tickets to the people who pissed in public if they haven't been to a registered urination point for the last 4 hours.
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from the summary:
facilities where children congregate for those sex offenders
know, I'm pretty sure this is a comma placement issue, but if not, just WOW.
We sure are making it easy for sex offenders these days... But if that causes it to call the police, is that entrapment?
Odd.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
If they have a high chance of committing another crime, enough so this device is warranted, why would you not keep them in prison to protect people?
because that is not what prison is for. The legal system is there to punish people for things that they have done, not a place to put people who might do something.
If you are going to use prison to keep 'dangerous' sex offenders off the street, I want at-risk children proactively locked up for life, because they are statistically most likely to become violent criminals. Also, get more illiterate, minorities, and mentally disabled in there too, because they are more likely to cause problems for society.
If someone is a repeat sex offender, they need medical treatment, not prison. But, it seems because the are the unholy scum of the earth in the eyes of society, that proper (and costly) programs to treat them will not be funded. The real problem is the simplistic 'just throw em in prison' attitudes like you expressed.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Eh, I know people are modding you down and whatever, but I have 2 kids, and yeah. I agree, mostly. I think they should have to wear a bracelet that beeps loudly so we'll know who they are. Or something identifyable. A big tatoo on their forhead?
But not everyone. Considering that being 18 and sleeping with your 17yo girlfriend can get you classified as a sex offender, I think this should be selective.
Rape, yes.
Incest, yes.
others? maybe.
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I presume that at least some portion of convicted sex offenders have children they care for. Does this mean they can't enroll their child in day care, take them to a park, or drop them off at school?
I'm guessing this device does nothing when wrapped in foil, except perhaps alert the cops the subject is now "invisible".
Eh, I know people are modding you down and whatever, but I have 2 kids, and yeah. I agree, mostly. I think they should have to wear a bracelet that beeps loudly so we'll know who they are. Or something identifyable. A big tatoo on their forhead?
But not everyone. Considering that being 18 and sleeping with your 17yo girlfriend can get you classified as a sex offender, I think this should be selective.
Rape, yes.
Incest, yes.
others? maybe.
Incest? Really? Just going with your statement (and hey, I've got a daughter too), why would you be more afraid for their safety from someone who committed the crime of incest? By its very definition, it'd be unlikely that your kids would be affected by that crime. And how can you justify that one, where multiple murders, or the rape of 18 year olds, wouldn't be similarly treated?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I worked for a company that was developing this technology ten years ago. Once one has the ability to track a moving target it is trivial to check it the object in in a certain area. Here are some other applications we developed.
1. Check the a moving object was not within a certain distance of a point. Same idea as area but simpler to implement
2. Check that two moving objects do not come withing a certain distance. Restraining orders.
3. Check that object does not leave a certain area. Make sure disabled, ill and/or elderly people do not leave a designated area.
Having an email sent based on the above criteria is simple.
COST: The cost benefit for tax payers is enormous. "Special Needs" inmates like sex offenders are exponentially more costly than those in the general population. They are in protective custody from inmates that consider it their duty to kill sex offenders, especially child molesters. It is important to note that these are parolees wearing the GPS. They will be getting out someday and have agreed to wear the GPS for an earlier release.
Law Enforcement Response: This is a powerful tool for the enforcement of stay away orders in general basically getting LE one step closer to "Minority Report" level pre-emptive policing. This gives LE the ability to put offenders back in jail for parole violations instead of waiting for a new victim. Be prepared for this to become standard for all parolees because this pilot program will be successful. Everytime a parolee wanders into a Red Zone it will be treated as a prevented sex crime against a child. Powerful PR stuff.
The List: While you can find the some people on the registered sex offenders with the "indecent exposure" charge the vast majority of offenders fall into the "annoy/molest children" charge. Anyone who gets caught for public urination/indecent exposure and AGREES to register as a sex offender for LIFE needed a better lawyer. Any decent lawyer (I know there are many horrible lawyers) should have plead that down to vandalism with the max fine and even max jail time. Take the MAX sentencing for vandalism or destruction of property before registering as a sex offender for LIFE due to that lame of an offense, just to avoid jail time. Jail time ends. LIFE.. well that ends too, but you get the idea.
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Then let's stamp "Thief" on your forehead for downloading that MP3.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
...in America, is that a man is lets a child drown and later on states that he decided it is better to be convicted of non-assistance of a person in danger than to risk to be put on such a list for touching a child during a rescue.
I'm talking about the real child molesters, not someone URINATING.
Really? That's not what the sex offender list is talking about - and that's the list that's being discussed here. Besides, how come by your argument the child molester gets on the list, but the child killer doesn't? And when/where does it stop?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Unfortunately the majority of the people wearing the devices are likely 19yr olds that had 15-16yr old girlfriends.
I completely agree. We should put collars on both of your kids so that when they approach within 5 feet of each other, the public can be alerted to their incestuous habits.
I would also hear arguments for tattooing them.
http://www.ncianet.org/publicpolicy/publications/SexOffendersReportJan2006.pdf and here is the evidence.
I wouldn't care.
And the reason I wouldn't care is because the vast majority of molestation cases are perpetrated by someone the child's family knows and trusts. It's not going to be some boogeyman on the street. Its going to be your brothers or sisters, in laws, your childs teacher, coach, etc. One of them. Or you or your spouse. This monitoring stuff doesn't protect your children against the real danger to kids.
What is with the fascination with child molestation? Sexual abuse is a serious crime, but sexual abuse of a child is no more serious than sexual abuse of an adult.
Otherwise we would have ten anonymous cowards ranting on about news for nerds, and Micahel Kristpoiet or whatever his name is, would be yelling that every one here is a feeb and that slashdot = stagnated.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
"Sex crime" includes everything from pissing on the side of a building in an alley, to being underage and having consensual sex. Possession of certain pornography counts. Etc.
The wikipedia article you link to, in fact, goes to great lengths to cover all the ridiculous things that make someone considered to be a "sex offender".
Let's also not forget that rape crimes have the highest false-accusal rate of any category of crime; an astounding number of "victims" later admit they filed complaints only for revenge for something else. In fact, the false accusal rate is greater by a factor of ten (I'm too lazy to dig up the FBI and Wikipedia links, sorry.)
So, no shit the recidivism rate is low...most of them are innocent in the first place.
Please help metamoderate.
We have too many people in prisons? Where would we put more? Maybe we should kill them off like on the earlier thread?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"Adult" is another one of those hysterical terms. I was a child once. I knew what I wanted, and I would tell you if it was not what I wanted. Looking at kids today, they are no different. Just try feeding a food item that is disliked by a child and see how they react.
FYI, the tatoo was a joke.
For the below AC, most in the US associate Incest with an adult mail with a sickness having relations with a child. Sure, there are adult/consensual exceptions but this thread is about sex offenders, not consenting adults.
Regardless though, I think the longterm response to these criminals should be relative to their crime. A young guy sleeping with a slightly younger girl? No permenant punishment. A 50yo man that preys on young boys, sorry I want to know where you are for the rest of your life so I, and my kids, can stay away.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Yeah I can see some funny stuff happening with this. A sex offender could look like they're flying around an area with a 200ft radius when they've just come out of a building, or like they're rapidly teleporting around when they're walking between tall buildings.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
*sigh*
Too late.
Best "String" Ever!
I prefer the term "exclusion zone" because then I can say
GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Two Strikes then one "Strike" and life imprisonment?
How many can you keep locked up? @65,000/Year?
America has the largest prison population in the world, larger (by far) than all of the EU and South America combined! larger (by far) than the Russian federation! and probably larger than China (if we could really know).
Why are we broke?
Fighting useless bullshit wars, making a lawbreaker out of almost everybody & locking them up in ever increasing numbers for longer periods of time at ever greater cost.
What's in the future for America? The rich will get exponentially richer and everybody else will suffer. The bankrupt aging paranoid "war state" will become more repressive an draconian and we will hear daily about the boogieman du-jour and more about protecting "the children" and "freedom" "terrorism/terrorists" "for our own good". There will be more and more "shadowy EVIL organizations" that need to be "fought".
What amazes me is that anybody believes this shit, considering what we all know about the last forty years!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Jails and probation and certain other restrictions are set at sentencing and are based on the laws in place at the time of the crime.
The ONLY reason a person should be under ANY restrictions after those expire is if he is a present danger to himself or others. This should be the SAME standard that applies to people who have never been convicted of a crime. If I raped someone 15 years ago and was convicted and served my full 14 years, my brother raped someone 15 years ago and got away with it on a technicality, and my cousin didn't rape anyone then, but all 3 of us have an identical risk of hurting ourselves or others today, we should be treated the same by the mental health system. The ONLY additional restrictions on me vs. my brother and cousin would be based on laws in effect in 1996 - which probably means I can't own a gun, I can't serve on a jury or in public office, and if my state had a sex-offender registration requirement in 1996 I would be subject to that. Otherwise, any restrictions on me should apply equally to my brother and cousin because, for the purposes of this illustration, we are equal risks to others.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I interviewed with a company that monitored people nationwide with the ankle bracelets.
Job was for network technician responsible for all computers/sat links/ect. Also was to make the receptionists coffee and copies as she needs and be her gofer.
6 days a week. With possible 7 days a week. Salary. $18k a year. No bonuses/perks. Oh and if the system messes up and someone gets hurt. Guess who is the fall guy?
I basically RAN from the interview.
It may be that children are inherently a more vulnerable target. They can't carry arms, they're generally not strong enough to fend off (or escape) ANY attacker, and they're often gullible. I imagine they're less likely to report it, because they might not even know (why) it's wrong, and often it's perpetrated by someone they see already as an authority figure.
I agree with you that both are terrible crimes -- but I think the public tends to sympathize with children more, partly because we're parents and worry about our own kids more than we worry about ourselves (or each other).
IANASO but my drive home takes me through probably 3-5 school zones (depending which route I take).
Am I to understand that registered sex offenders are not allowed to drive through a school zone, when there could be several schools on the main road? Do these guys have to carefully plan their routes to avoid entering the red zones, or is it a matter of them "hanging around" these red zones?
In most states the term "capital" is reserved for death-penalty-eligible offenses like capital murder.
Yes, I know some states use "capital" for other very serious crimes but many do not.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm willing to live in a society where I have a low chance of being falsely convicted of a misdemeanor, a very low chance of being falsely convicted of a low-level felony, and an extremely low chance of being convicted of a life-sentence felony in exchange for the privilege of not having a lot more people get away with crimes than already do.
I'm not willing to take any risk of being falsely convicted and sentenced to death.
The "bar of absolute proof before sentence is carried out" must be set at a point where more than a small number of citizens stand up and say "woah, it could be ME you are falsely convicting tomorrow and I won't stand for it."
For purists, that bar is the lowest-level misdemeanor. For me, it's the death penalty. For Socrates, there was no bar - he drank the hemlock in respect for the law. For others the bar is somewhere between a fine-only misdemeanor and life.
Where is the "5% mark" - that is, the level at which 5% of Americans would scream "that's too high!"
I don't know.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
it costs so much to keep then locked up for life and the prisons and prison overcrowding is so bad people are getting out just on overcrowding.
I confess, I drove to work today thereby polluting the air the mother of your children is breathing, which is causing them actual albeit infinitesimal harm.
Hardly worthy of execution.
Higher up the harm scale my unwillingness to tax myself to death to support a K-12 education system 10x as good as the current one is also harming them, but again, hardly worthy of execution.
If they apply for a job 18 years from now and I'm the hiring manager and turn them down in favor of another applicant thereby hurting them financially, does that deserve education?
Yes, I know what this thread is about but my point is you need to choose your words more carefully.
To wit:
If I'm not born yet either and I'm your kid's future boyfriend or girlfriend and I fool around with them when we are both 15, will you kill me? Will my parents kill your precious child? Metaphorically perhaps but I hope not literally.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They wise up and stop doing things that are illegal.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Way to only focus on the false allegations, and not all the ludicrous things that make you a a "sex offender".
Also, you neglected to mention that some studies found obscenely high rates of false rape accusations- well over half, in fact.
Lastly: let's not let a little thing like The Innocence Project get in the way of anything. You know, that project where they free huge numbers of death row inmates after proving they're innocent, usually using DNA testing? Funny how they find so many innocent people on death row, given murders receive the heaviest investigation.
Please help metamoderate.
"We could outlaw religion and most of these sex crimes would disappear in a couple of generations. But we don't have time for rational solutions. -- George Carlin
Take away arbitrary standards (age, morality, etc) these problems go away.
We've had bankers and executives mess up the lives of millions of people(that includes children) and have gotten away with it, prosecutors going after sexting kids for political reasons, etc. So how can we "punish/abuse" so-called sex offenders individually doing what actually comes naturally when we won't deal with the "wmd" of abusers doing it for greed or those that abuse for political gain. Talk about hypocrites.
We'll vaporize entire cities with individual scenes and commentary on national TV with no problem but if theres one bare titty everyones up in arms.
they're too expensive to house, and when they inevitably get murders in jail the family sues. We're not letting these ppl out to be kind, we're doing it because private run prisons want a nice, quiet non-violent drug offender that does his time and is a perfect little profit center.
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Most rapes are committed by people that the victim knows. This has always been the case, not just for child rape, but for every kind of rape.
Statistically speaking, a father is considerably more likely to rape their children than a random stranger.
A lot of these people that are 'sex offenders' aren't rapists and never have been. The number of things that can get you assigned that label is positively asinine, and you're not making your kids any safer by knowing who these people are.
People that are dangerous need to serve their time, get their treatment, and then go free if they're no longer a danger. If your crime was trading nude pictures while you were underage with your underage girlfriend, then you were NEVER a danger. It's a badly broken system.
You can live in a society that lives up to your desires. Move to Singapore.
Are you saying Singapore has
*a 0% false-conviction rate for the death penalty
*an extremely low false-conviction rate for long-sentence felonies
*a very low false-conviction rate for low-sentence felonies, i.e. less than 10-15 years
*a low false-conviction rate for misdemeanors
and
*a society in which 95% of the population thinks the false-conviction rates at each of these levels is acceptable enough that they are willing to be one of the falsely convicted?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.